Córdoba’s Jesuit heritage begins with an apparent contradiction: the buildings gathered in the city centre cannot be fully understood without leaving it. The church, domestic chapel, former rectorate and Colegio de Monserrat form an urban concentration of worship and education. Beyond them, rural estates supplied the productive foundations of that life. The journey between the Manzana Jesuítica and the estancias reveals a territory organized around the movement of resources, knowledge and people.
UNESCO’s 2000 inscription comprises the city block and five estancias: Caroya, Jesús María, Santa Catalina, Alta Gracia and La Candelaria. Together they preserve different aspects of a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century system. These farming and manufacturing establishments should not all be described as a single former mission village. Their churches belonged to larger working complexes, and their relationship with the urban institutions is essential to the story.