Buenos Aires (city) - geography.

Buenos Aires (city) - geography. I INTRODUCTION Buenos Aires (city), capital and largest city of Argentina, located on the western bank of the Río de la Plata, inland from the Atlantic Ocean. The city is the political, economic, social, and cultural center of Argentina, and its influence extends well beyond the nation's borders. The original settlement's name, Puerto Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Aire (Port of Our Lady Saint Mary of the Good Air), survived in abbreviated form as simply Buenos Aires (Good Airs). Buenos Aires consists of the City of Buenos Aires and Gran (Greater) Buenos Aires. The City of Buenos Aires is a federal district, established in 1880, made up of the Buenos Aires city proper. It has 48 barrios (neighborhoods). Gran Buenos Aires includes both the City of Buenos Aires and its 19 suburbs, known as partidos (municipalities). In 2005, 3 million people lived in the City of Buenos Aires. In 2003, 13 million people--about one-third of Argentina's population--lived within Gran Buenos Aires. The residents of Buenos Aires are known as Porteños (people of the port). Buenos Aires is situated on the Río de la Plata, which is an immense estuary formed by the confluence of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers. The Río de la Plata keeps Buenos Aires temperate: The city is cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter than inland locations at the same latitude. Winter temperatures rarely fall below freezing, and snow fell only once in the 20th century. In July, the coolest month, average daily highs reach 15°C (60°F), while lows drop to about 8°C (46°F). In January, the height of summer, average daily highs reach nearly 30°C (86°F), while lows average about 20°C (67°F). Rainfall is moderate with the annual total averaging 1,147 mm (45.2 in). Precipitation is more or less evenly distributed throughout the year. The humidity in Buenos Aires can be high, and in the summer months the combination of heat and humidity can make moderate temperatures feel oppressive. II BUENOS AIRES AND ITS METROPOLITAN AREA The core of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area is the City of Buenos Aires, a federal district and the nation's capital. It consists of 48 barrios, or neighborhoods. People in Buenos Aires often spend much of their lives in the same barrio. The City of Buenos Aires has an area of 200 sq km (77 sq mi) and is densely populated, with 3 million people residing within its boundaries. The nation's principal government buildings, cultural institutions, parks, and businesses are found in the City of Buenos Aires. The Plaza de Mayo, situated close to the waterfront at the eastern edge of Buenos Aires, was the starting point for the original settlement. As the city expanded outward in a semicircle, the plaza continued to serve as the principal urban focus. Facing the Plaza de Mayo are the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace that contains the offices of the president of Argentina; the metropolitan cathedral; and the Cabildo, the colonial town council, now a museum. Nearby is the Colón Theater, one of the finest opera houses in the world, and also the Obelisco, a monument strikingly similar to the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. Buenos Aires is also known for its magnificent boulevards such as Avenida 9 de Julio and Avenida de Mayo, which runs from the Plaza de Mayo to the Plaza de Congreso, home to the national congress building, the Palacio del Congreso. The city's most famous residential and commercial neighborhoods lie no more than 2 to 3 km (1 to 2 mi) from the Plaza de Mayo. To the south of the Plaza de Mayo and Avenida de Mayo is the colorful neighborhood of La Boca. Many people who live in this neighborhood are descended from emigrants from Genoa, Italy. This neighborhood also has industrial zones and working-class areas and is known for its brightly painted buildings. To the north are the majority of the city's parks, its two racetracks, and many of the middle- and upper-class neighborhoods, such as Recoleta and Retiro. Gran Buenos Aires has an area of 3,885 sq km (1,500 sq mi) and is made up of 19 partidos as well as the City of Buenos Aires. The region contains residential, commercial, and industrial districts, as well as many areas of open space. The residential areas range from wealthy upscale suburban areas to working-class barrios and government-subsidized high-rise apartments. Considerable industrialization has occurred along the principal transportation routes that radiate out from the city. As the Buenos Aires metropolitan region continues to grow, the open areas between these transportation axes will become increasingly urbanized. III PEOPLE Despite its immense population, Buenos Aires is surprisingly homogenous in its ethnic and racial composition. People of European origin dominate the city's population. Most of these, perhaps three-fourths of the total population, are descendants of Italian and Spanish immigrants, millions of whom came to Argentina between the 1880s and 1930s and settled in Buenos Aires. These Italian and Spanish immigrants strongly influenced the culture of the city. A smaller part of the population, perhaps 5 percent, is also of European ancestry, including Irish, British, Swiss, French, and Russian. Although most of these groups have assimilated into the city's culture, Anglo-Argentines remain a distinct ethnic group and are an important economic force in the city. Many in the Anglo-Argentine community descend from wealthy immigrant entrepreneurs who arrived from Britain about 100 years ago. The city also is home to Latin America's largest Jewish community as well as to a diverse Arab community of both Christians and Muslims, many of them emigrants from Syria and Lebanon. During the last 20 years the city's racial mix has become more diverse as mestizos (people of mixed European and indigenous ancestry) from provincial towns and rural areas have immigrated to the city. Perhaps up to 15 percent of the metropolitan population is mestizo, primarily from Argentina's northwestern provinces as well as Bolivia and Paraguay. The remainder of the metropolitan area's population includes a diverse mix of ethnic and racial groups and people from other countries. Especially notable in the 1990s was the arrival of Asian entrepreneurs, particularly Korean and Chinese, who have specialized in retailing and the small-scale manufacture of consumer goods. Spanish is the overwhelmingly dominant language in Buenos Aires, and the city has little linguistic diversity. The prevalence of Italian immigrants during the first decades of the 20th century contributed to the development of a local vernacular Spanish, known as lunfardo. Apart from the languages of recently arrived Asian immigrants, few foreign languages are spoken regularly. Historically, the elite and educated classes learned French as a second language, but English is now largely the second language of choice. Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion in Buenos Aires, as it is in the rest of Argentina. As much as 85 percent of the city's population is Catholic. Protestant religious denominations have increased in the city in the last 50 years, and many synagogues serve the city's Jewish community. IV CULTURE AND EDUCATION Buenos Aires is the undisputed focus of Argentina's cultural life, but its influence extends far beyond the nation's borders. It is one of just a handful of cities, including Madrid and Mexico City, that dominate intellectual and artistic life in the Spanish-speaking world. The city has produced or nurtured many of the most prominent Spanish-language writers of the 20th century, including Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, and Manuel Puig. Buenos Aires has long been one of the primary centers of Spanish-language publishing and printing, and it is home to major publishing companies. It supports the oldest English-language daily newspaper in Latin America, the Buenos Aires Herald, published since 1876. The arts have a long, rich history in Buenos Aires. This is manifested in part by the ornate, yet stunningly beautiful and well-designed, Colón Theater on Avenida 9 de Julio. The Colón opened in 1908 and is renowned for its ballet, opera, and classical music. The city also has a well-developed theater district, somewhat similar to Broadway in New York, which runs along Avenida Corrientes in the downtown core. During the 20th century the city also nurtured a vibrant and respectable film industry. Buenos Aires is the intellectual capital of Argentina and home to the nation's largest and oldest public university. The University of Buenos Aires, founded in 1821, has a student body of more than 200,000 and provides a comprehensive university education. Since the 1960s a range of privately supported universities has been established in the city. The city is also home to the National Library, which has more than 2 million books and manuscripts. Several annual cultural events in Buenos Aires are worth noting. The city's book fair occurs during April each year and draws exhibitors from throughout Latin America and other parts of the world. This three-week event draws more than 1 million visitors each year. The International Livestock and Agricultural Exhibition, held each July, reflects Argentina's traditional dependence upon agriculture. The tango and its glorification are the focus of celebrations on December 11, the Day of the Tango, and during the last week in June, which coincides with the anniversary of the death of the city's most famous tango singer, Carlos Gardel. V RECREATION Several parks, gardens, zoos, and other recreational spaces make up key parts of the urban landscape of Buenos Aires. The most famous and extensively used outdoor area is the complex of Palermo Parks, also known as the Parque Tres de Febrero. It consists of open spaces, artificial lakes, and a range of other outdoor attractions adjacent to the upscale urban neighborhoods of Recoleta and Retiro just northwest of the city center. The park complex contains the city's botanical gardens, Jardín Botánico Carlos Thays; the city's zoo, Jardín Zoológico; a formal rose garden, the Rosedal; a planetarium, Plantetario Galileo Galilei; and adjacent to the park, a racetrack, the Hipódromo Argentino. Other notable parks include the Parque Lezama, in the southeastern section of the city adjacent to the barrio of San Telmo; and the Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur, on the Río de la Plata just east of the city center. The Parque Almirante Guillermo Brown, one of the city's largest single expanses of open space, is on the southern edge of Buenos Aires. Small neighborhood plazas abound throughout the city and metropolitan area. Despite their small size of usually no more than a single city block, these plazas provide accessible open space and a venue for social interaction at the neighborhood level. Spectator sports--especially soccer--are popular in Buenos Aires. Soccer stadiums often serve as key landmarks and focal points of the neighborhoods in which teams are based. Horseracing is also a popular pastime, and a number of tracks are found in the city including the Hipódromo Argentino near Palermo Parks and the Hipódromo de San Isidro adjacent to the northern section of the Río de la Plata. VI ECONOMY A diverse economy characterizes the Buenos Aires metropolitan region. Historically the city has served as Argentina's major trading center, and trade continues to play a key role in the region's economy. The vast majority of the country's agricultural exports pass through Buenos Aires. These include wheat, flax, meat, dairy products, hides, and wool. Similarly, most of the nation's imports also pass through the city. Industries related to agriculture represent a central component of the city's industrial base, with flour milling, meatpacking and refrigeration, and food-oil processing accounting for much of this activity. The city's industrial sector also produces much of the country's consumer products and durable goods. The city's financial sector grew immensely in the 1990s, and Buenos Aires has become Latin America's third most important financial center after São Paulo, Brazil, and Mexico City. Many major international banks maintain branches or offices in the city. Buenos Aires is the hub of Argentina's transportation system. Two airports serve the city: the international airport, commonly known as Ezeiza, which lies some 35 km (22 mi) south of downtown; and Jorge Newbery, which lies just a few kilometers north of downtown. The subway system, known locally as the Subte, provides service to the City of Buenos Aires but does not extend into the suburbs. Buses are the principal mode of transportation in the city and around the metropolitan area. The city also has passenger rail service to the suburbs and peripheral urban centers. Railroads move a significant proportion of freight in and out of the city and to and from the country's interior. An extensive highway system provides connections between Buenos Aires and Argentina's principal cities and provincial centers, as well as with the neighboring countries of Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil. However, with few exceptions, almost all roads are two-lane highways, and while major roads are paved, road quality is sometimes marginal and maintenance inadequate. Ferries and hydrofoils provide frequent daily service across the Río de la Plata to Uruguay. VII GOVERNMENT Governance of the metropolitan region of Buenos Aires is complex. The City of Buenos Aires is under the jurisdiction of the federal government and is governed by a popularly elected mayor and legislature, made up of 60 elected representatives. In the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, the basic political unit is the partido (municipal government), governed by an elected mayor and municipal council. The federal government established the National Commission of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area in 1987 to coordinate governance issues between the City of Buenos Aires and suburban municipalities. However, the commission has no governance authority or political power, and its efforts have been largely ineffectual. VIII HISTORY Although Spanish explorers initially founded the city of Buenos Aires in 1536, they abandoned it shortly thereafter because of conflicts with the indigenous peoples who lived in the area. Spanish settlers reestablished a permanent settlement in 1580. Almost 100 years later in 1667, the city's population stood at about 4,000 inhabitants. The town consisted principally of single-story adobe buildings and served as the principal trading and commercial center for the vast, largely unsettled Pampas region that surrounded it. Small herds of cattle and horses brought from Spain multiplied and spread over the Pampas, creating the conditions for a stable agricultural economy. The city supplied beef and draft animals to Spanish towns and mining settlements deep in the interior. Although the Spanish had officially closed the Buenos Aires port to trade, smuggling and trade with the interior prospered. By 1776 the Spanish crown had recognized the geographical advantages of the city's location and its economic potential. It made Buenos Aires the capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, the seat of government and the administrative center for present-day Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The city continued to grow as it consolidated its position as the key urban center of Spain's southern Latin American colonies. The region declared itself independent from Spain in 1810, and Spain officially recognized its independence in 1816. Modest population growth followed, with the number of inhabitants in the city reaching 60,000 in 1826 and 90,000 in 1854. These increases occurred against the backdrop of a long-standing, divisive, and sometimes violent conflict between the city of Buenos Aires and the interior provinces of Argentina. The city's elite sought to open Buenos Aires and the country at large to free trade, which would allow the importation of low-cost manufactured goods from Europe, particularly Britain. The interior provinces favored trade barriers that would protect local industries and commerce. By 1830 Buenos Aires had prevailed on the trade issue, and over the next several decades the city established itself as the undisputed economic and social hub of Argentina. The city officially became the nation's capital in 1862, and the government created the City of Buenos Aires federal district in 1880. Nevertheless, Buenos Aires remained essentially provincial. Most of its political, commercial, and social life focused on the central plaza, the Plaza de Mayo, clearly reflecting its Spanish colonial heritage. In the last decades of the 19th century the city dramatically transformed. The rich Pampas region was completely opened to settlement and agriculture by the early 1880s when the Argentine army defeated the remaining indigenous peoples who had occupied it. Simultaneously, innovations in refrigeration and shipping permitted Argentina to export more of its meat to Europe. Argentina became fully integrated into the world economy as beef, mutton, wheat, wool, and other agricultural exports flourished, fueling an economic boom. Buenos Aires grew rapidly as hundreds of thousands of southern European immigrants, largely from Italy and Spain, migrated to the city from the 1880s to the 1930s. The new wealth generated by the booming export economy transformed the infrastructure of the city. The elite sought to change the city's landscape into the image of a European city, notably Paris, France. They opened broad avenues, built ornate public buildings such as the Colón Theater, and constructed numerous commercial buildings, apartments, and mansions. The city's area expanded dramatically as a system of local train lines and trolleys radiated outward from the city center, allowing land development on the urban fringe. By the beginning of the 1930s, about 3 million people lived in the city, nearly one-third of Argentina's population. The Great Depression of the 1930s effectively ended foreign immigration to Buenos Aires, and World War II (1939-1945) disrupted traditional trading between Argentina and its principal European trading partners. During those years, Argentina exported few agricultural products and imported fewer manufactured goods. This situation stimulated Argentine industry as entrepreneurs established factories to manufacture those goods that they could no longer readily import. Buenos Aires benefited disproportionately from this process, and manufacturing enterprises and industrial employment boomed in the metropolitan area. The metropolitan area continued to grow after the war, and in 1947 its population stood at 4.7 million. By the beginning of the 21st century the metropolitan area had swelled to almost 13 million people. This rapid growth during the last half of the 20th century placed tremendous strains on the city. Housing and public services did not keep pace with population growth, and by the 1990s as many as 1.5 million of the city's residents lived in substandard housing or shantytowns with limited or inadequate public services. The city's transportation system was also unable to keep pace with growth, and traffic congestion increased dramatically. Buenos Aires was also affected by Argentina's declining economy. By the beginning of the 21st century, the city had a shrinking middle class, while the upper and lower classes grew. Its unemployment rate rose, and a substantial proportion of the population, close to 20 percent, lived in poverty. People in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area held strikes to protest the economic conditions as the city and the country grappled with how to end the financial crisis. Contributed By: Robert B. Kent Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.