Buenos AiresArgentina

Tammy Williams

Geography• Southern South America

bordering the South Atlantic Ocean between Chile and Uruguay.

• Total Area: 2,766,890 sq. km• Borders Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,

Paraguay and Uruguay.• Climate – Mostly temperate; arid

southeast; subantarctic in the southwest.

• Rich plains of the Pampas in northern half, flat to rolling plateau of Partagonia in the south; rugged Andes along western border.

GEOGRAPHYNatural resources: Fertile of the Pampas, lead,

zinc, tin, cooper, iron ore, manganese, petroleum and uranium.

Argentina is the second largest country in South America (after Brazil); strategic location relative to sea lanes between the South Atlantic and the South Pacific Oceans (Strait of Magellan, Beagle Channel, Drake Passage); Cerro Aconcagua is South America’s tallest mountain, while Laguna del Carbon is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere.

People

• Population mostly made up of immigrants from Spain and Italy, who came in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

• Argentinians are known as Portenos (people of the port)

• Portenos are generally extroverted, sophisticated, animated, yet their attitudes are tinged with pessimism or fatalism about the direction of their country.

• Other Latin Americans view Portenos as slightly arrogant or snobbish.

PEOPLE

There is a minority of Germans, Britons, Ukrainians, Czechs, Poles, Slovenes, Lithuanians, Middle Easterns, Koreans, Japanese and Chinese.

Northern Argentina is predominately Mestizo (people of mixed Indian and European ancestry).

Rioplatense Spanish is the dominant language. Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion of

Portenos. Lunfardo Argot originated in the prison population.

Uses words from Italian dialect, from Brazilian Portuguese, from African and Caribbean language and from English.

Culture• The culture emphasizes the

Spanish and Catholic heritage.• Some nationalist and populist

sectors see only the gaucho tradition.

• Ultra-nationalist stress the Arabic origins of gaucho culture.

• Conservative elite traced the origins of the national culture to the Roman catholic and Spanish tradition.

• In the northwest, the influence of Pre-Columbian Andean indigenous traditions is very strong.

Culture• The tango refers to the music, the

lyrics, and the dance that originated in the lower-class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires city.

• Dulce de leche and asado are some of the most important meals in the Argentine diet.

• Card games and table games also express how Argentines sometimes view themselves.

• They display flags when the country is participating in world soccer cup matches and in war times.

• Argentina is know for its writers, they also have an opera house, the Teatro Colon, and dance theater.

• There are sixty art galleries in Buenos Aires.

Received their Independence from Spain in 1816.

After WWII, Peronist Authoritarian rule and interference in governments was followed by a military junta that took power in 1976.

Democracy returned in 1983. Seaman Juan Diaz de Solis, in the name of

Spain, was the first European to reach Rio de la Plata in 1516.

City of Buenos Aires was first established as Ciudad de Nuestra Senora Santa Maria del Buen Ayre (City of Our Lady Saint Mary of the Fair Winds)

History

Buenos Aires depended primarily on trade.

The capture of Porto Bello by the British forces fueled the need to foster commerce via the Atlantic route.

Buenos Aires has been Argentina’s main venue for Liberal and free-trade ideas, and advocated a more Catholic approach to political and social issues.

Besides its fertile Pampas, railroad construction in the second half of the 19th century, increased the economic power of Buenos Aires as raw material flowed into its factories.

By 1920 Buenos Aires was a favored destination for immigrants from Europe, particularly Spain and Italy.

History

SOURCES

Wikipedia

Encyclopedia Britannica

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