Abstract. Let F be a totally real field, let I be a nonzero ideal of the ring of integers O F of F , let Γ 0 (I) be the congruence subgroup of Hecke type of G = d j=1 SL 2 (R) embedded diagonally in G, and let χ be a character of Γ 0 (I) of the form χFor a finite subset P of prime ideals p not dividing I, we consider the ring H I , generated by the Hecke operators T (p 2 ), p ∈ P (see §3.2) acting on (Γ, χ)-automorphic forms on G.Given the cuspidal space L 2,cusp ξ Γ 0 (I)\G, χ , we let V̟ run through an orthogonal system of irreducible G-invariant subspaces so that each V̟ is invariant under H I . For each 1 ≤ j ≤ d, let λ̟ = (λ ̟,j ) be the vector formed by the eigenvalues of the Casimir operators of the d factors of G on V̟, and for each p ∈ P , we take λ̟,p ∈ Jp :is the eigenvalue on V̟ of the Hecke operator T (p 2 ). If for some prime p the Hecke operator T (p) can be defined then its eigenvalue on V̟ is real and equal to λ̟,p or −λ̟,p.For each family of expanding boxes t → Ωt, as in (3) in R d , and fixed interval Jp in Jp, for each p ∈ P , we consider the counting functionHere c r (̟) denotes the normalized Fourier coefficient of order r at ∞ for the elements of V̟, with r ∈ O ′ F p O ′ F for every p ∈ P . In the main result in this paper, Theorem 1.1, we give, under some mild conditions on the Ωt, the asymptotic distribution of the function N (Ωt; (Jp) p∈P ), as t → ∞. We show that at the finite places outside I the eigenvalues of the Hecke operator T (p 2 ) are equidistributed compatibly with the Sato-Tate measure, whereas at the archimedean places the eigenvalues λ̟ are equidistributed with respect to the Plancherel measure.As a consequence, if we pick an infinite place l and we prescribe λ ̟,j ∈ Ω j for all infinite places j = l and λ̟,p ∈ Jp for all finite places p in P for fixed sets Ω j and fixed intervals Jp ⊂ Jp with positive measure and then allow λ ̟,l to run over larger and larger regions, then there are infinitely many representations ̟ in such a set, and their positive density is as described in Theorem 1.1.