BUENOS AIRES

province, eastern Argentina, lying south of the Ro Paran and southeast of the Ro de la Plata (which forms the border with Uruguay) and extending westward from the Atlantic Ocean to include the major part of the humid Argentine Pampa, a vast, grass-covered plain. The province, which surrounds the federal district of Buenos Aires and includes Martn Garca Island, has an area of 118,843 sq mi [307,804 sq km]. The largest and most populated of the provinces, it is the cultural and economic centre of Argentina. One main river, the Salado, crosses the province (northwestsoutheast) for a distance of 360 mi (580 km). In the south, two low mountain ranges, the Sierra del Tandil and the Sierra de la Ventana, extend inland from the coast in northwesterly directions. During colonial times the region was virtually unexploited, save for hides from the vast herds of cattle and horses that ran wild on the Pampa. The inhabitants supported separation from Spain in 1810, but throughout most of the 19th century there was continued internal strife during the efforts to organize the nation. Provincial status was attained in 1862. The city of Buenos Aires became the site of the national government in 1880, and the provincial authorities moved their administration to La Plata (q.v.). About the same time, the Pampa Indians were subdued. The period of peace that followed, as well as an influx of foreign immigrants, provided stimulus for economic development. The late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed the expansion of cattle raising and the development of wheat, corn (maize), and alfalfa growing as major sources of income for both domestic and European markets. Although Buenos Aires province ranks first in the republic for the number and quality of its livestock and uses about half of its land for grazing, an increasing area has been given over to crops. Livestock raising is concentrated in the coastal area below the federal district, extending inland for 150 mi and southward to Mar del Plata. A broad band running north and south through the province and growing wider in the southern coastal region is devoted to wheat. Corn (maize) is raised in the north, while around the federal district, for a radius of 50 mi, are intensive truck gardens that supply the urban population with fresh fruits and vegetables. Industry and transportation systems are concentrated in the federal capital of Buenos Aires and its suburbs, but Baha Blanca, Mar del Plata, and La Plata are also important industrial and communication centres. Pop. (1983 est.) 11,625,000. The early period The city of Buenos Aires was founded twice. It was first founded in 1536 by an expedition led by the Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza, who had been made the first governor general of the Ro de la Plata region. That settlement soon fell victim to local Indians and to deficient supplies, and the survivors had to retreat up the river to the fortified settlement of Asuncin. Nearly 50 years later Juan de Garay led a more substantial expedition back to the site, and there, at the mouth of the Ro Riachuelo, he refounded Nuestra Seora Santa Mara del Buen Aire in 1580. Huge tracts of land in the environs of the city were granted to members of the expedition, and they began immediately to harvest the pastoral animals that had multiplied since having been left by the original party. For nearly two centuries Buenos Aires grew at a modest pace. It was a reasonably good port, but it suffered from the rigid organization of the Spanish Empire in America, by which only selected ports could be used for trade. The entire Ro de la Plata region was made part of the Viceroyalty of Peru and governed from Lima. Within the Viceroyalty, only Callao, the port near Lima, was granted permission to trade with Spanish merchants. This effectively reduced Buenos Aires to a backwater. Goods from Callao took nearly six months to reach Buenos Aires by oxcart. Any goods the settlers wanted to sell to Spain took that long to reach Callao and another four or six months before they might be shipped from the port to Cdiz. A complete exchange took at least 24 months. The vast distance separating Buenos Aires from other centres of population in the viceroyalty left the city with only sporadic contact with the administrative authority of the crown. Gradually, the city evolved its own way of life, based on extensive ranching and contraband trade, while the rest of the viceroyalty was focused to one degree or another on the mining enterprises of the Andean region, called Upper Peru (modern Bolivia). A string of settlements was established along the foothills of the Andes to serve the mining region. Their links with the port on the Ro de la Plata were of little consequence. Instead of suffering from neglect, the porteos thrived. In the last quarter of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th, settlements spread rapidly to the northwest along the banks of the Paran River, a fertile area well irrigated by many streams and small rivers; these were easily navigated by small boats operated by smugglers who reached the many farms and ranches that lined the river. By the beginning of the 18th century, Argentines were exporting thousands of tons of cereals, tens of thousands of cattle hides, and tons of dried beef destined for the plantations of northern Brazil and the Caribbean islands. The British were the principal source of capital and of transportation for this contraband trade. By the middle of the 18th century, Buenos Aires was a thriving, if still modest commercial entrept of nearly 20,000 inhabitants. The houses were built along the narrow earthen streets stretching north from the Riachuelo. The original harbour had become silted up, and the larger boats that now called at the port had to anchor offshore. But the economic success of the region was undeniable, and in 1776, as part of the Bourbon monarchy's broad reform effort, Buenos Aires was named the capital of the new Viceroyalty of the Ro de la Plata. The Bourbon monarchs hoped that by expanding their administrative setup in the Americas they would increase tax revenue from the colonies and, at the same time, increase control over the colonies to protect them from the covetous attentions of Spain's rivals, especially the British. Trade out of Buenos Aires was by this time legal, although the crown still attempted to control its flow and pattern. Because the major mining towns of Upper Peru were now within the confines of the viceroyalty, silver was the most valuable export. The city flourished, and, over the last quarter of the 18th and in the early 19th century, the population of the city nearly doubled, from 24,000 in 1778 to 42,500 in 1810. Official trade reflected Buenos Aires' position as the administrative centre of the viceroyalty. Spain became the region's principal trading partner. Perhaps the most significant result of the administrative reforms of 1776 was that they split the elite into two groups whose economic interests were divergent. One continued to concentrate its energies on the pastoral activities of the city's hinterland and the related trade with Cuba, Brazil, and Great Britain; its interests were more international. The other group was tied economically and administratively to the official activities of the viceroyalty. It was linked to the official bodies, such as the consulado (the trade board), that were recognized by the crown and through which the crown attempted to channel all economic activity. This group's interests were more regional. The independent capital The independent spirit of the city was given a tremendous boost in 1806 and 1807 when local militia forces fought off two attempted invasions by British troops. Neither invasion was a major effort, but the fact that local forces had defeated a British army marked the initial episode in the history of Argentine nationalism. In 1808 when Napoleon invaded Spain and placed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne in Madrid, many porteos, like people throughout the empire, reconsidered their ties to the crown. In May 1810 the town council severed ties with Spain and the viceregal government, and on May 25 it declared allegiance to a new ruling junta. The events of the next decade emphasized the split between the city and the rest of the region. Few residents of the interior were disposed to follow the lead of Buenos Aires, and it was not until 1816, at a congress in Tucumn, that the other provinces declared their independence. A provisional government was created, and Buenos Aires was named capital of the United Provinces of the Ro de la Plata. The more distant provinces of the former viceroyalty, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Paraguay, refused to become part of a new nation dominated by the port city, however. For nearly 30 years, the provinces were held together in an uneasy truce, called federalism, in which the city of Buenos Aires and its hinterland exercised whatever central authority existed in the new nation; the interior provinces were allowed to go their own way. Ironically, it was the interior provinces that suffered most from this arrangement, and in 1851 they mounted a coalition that attempted to change the balance of power by force. They succeeded in ousting the porteo leader, Juan Manuel de Rosas, but were unable to reorganize the nation in an effective manner. A decade later, the porteos, led by the military leader Bartolom Mitre, imposed their will on the interior through a strong government centred in Buenos Aires. This development was recognized officially when the city was made the federal capital in 1880. The political struggles between the porteos and the interior became more intense after 1850 because the stakes became greater. Dramatic changes in the European market as a result of industrialization and the transformation of capitalism, together with significant advances in technology, made exploitation of the fertile plains of Argentina economically viable. All that was required was the labour to work the land and the capital to pay for the transportation of products to the ports. For the most part, the capital came from Britain. The bulk of the labour came from Spain and Italy. In little more than a generation the land was transformed. By the beginning of World War I, Argentina had become one of the world's principal exporters of agricultural products. The economic change in the countryside led to three fundamental changes in the character of the city. First, the population changed. Immigrants who had been attracted to the country with the hope of settling on the land found it impossible to buy land and they migrated back to the city. At the same time, the need for new port facilities and service activities related to increasing exports created a demand for labour. Those newcomers, mainly from Spain and Italy, but also from eastern Europe and Germany, jammed into the older houses on the south side of the city, pushing the middle-class residents north across the Avenida de Mayo. Because many jobs were in the port and in the slaughterhouses on the outskirts of the city, the newcomers also pushed south across the Riachuelo into adjoining counties. The second significant change in the city was the massive amount of wealth that came into the hands of individuals and to the state. The former built great mansions, modeled after French chteaus. These mansions today house government ministries or the embassies of foreign governments. At the time, they were the international symbol of vast wealth. In Paris, at the turn of the century, a common phrase was to be as rich as an Argentine. These mansions were constructed in the Barrio Norte, many around the Plaza San Martn, at the northern end of the Calle Florida, or close to the Avenida Santa Fe. The third major transformation was in the physical layout of the city. The owners of the mansions, members of the ruling elite, decided that they would transform Buenos Aires into the Paris of South America. As part of the preparations for the May 1910 celebration of the centennial of the first declaration of independence, the City Council decided to build a subway system and a network of broad avenues radiating out from the city centre, in frank imitation of the urban reforms imposed on Paris by Napoleon III. The plan called for the construction of broad avenues every four blocks, running east and west, and every 10 blocks, running north and south, and for construction of what would be claimed as the broadest avenue in the world, patterned on the Champs-lyses. Named 9 de Julio after the official national day of independence, that block-wide swath was cut through the city in the 1930s and opened officially in October 1937. The infrastructure put into place in the years before World War I endures to the present. The broad avenues in the core of the city, most of them carved out during the 1920s and '30s, continue to carry the burden of vehicular traffic, and only one of the five subway lines was built after World War II. Although the infrastructure of the city is severely strained, the urban structure still adheres to the form conceived by the generation of leaders born in the 19th century. city, Federal District, and capital of Argentina, situated on the shore of the Ro de la Plata, 150 miles (240 kilometres) from the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the world's most important ports and most populous cities. The city proper covers an area of 77 square miles (200 square kilometres). The total metropolitan area, however, occupies some 1,500 square miles. According to tradition, 16th-century Spanish sailors named the port for their patron saint, Santa Mara del Buen Aire (St. Mary of the Good Air). The city is the national centre of commerce, industry, politics, and culture. Its wealth and influence overshadow the life of the rest of the nation, and it also presents Argentina with its severest economic and social problems. In addition, because of its location, Buenos Aires often has been a centre for political and social unrest. The Argentine poet and philosopher Ezequiel Martnez Estrada has called the city The Head of Goliath, a metaphor that illustrates its imbalance in relation to the rest of the country, much like a large-headed giant with a feeble body. Buenos Aires, which celebrated its 400th anniversary in 1980, is beset with many of the same problems encountered by other large cities. Growing industry is causing increased pollution; limited land area in the city proper has led to the construction of high-rise buildings, adding to urban congestion; rapid expansion is hampered by inadequate public services; increased migration from the countryside is creating a growing urban population composed of the poor and unskilled. Adding to the complexity of daily living is a high rate of inflation, which hampers efforts to improve conditions. There are, in spite of all this, signs of progress and burgeoning strength in the city. city, federal district, and capital of Argentina, situated on the western shore of the Ro de la Plata, 150 mi (240 km) from the Atlantic Ocean. The city, a cosmopolitan, sprawling megalopolis, is one of the world's major ports, as well as the national centre of commerce, industry, politics, and culture. The following article treats briefly the modern city of Buenos Aires. Fuller treatment is provided in the following Macropaedia articles. For history and contemporary life, see Buenos Aires; for additional perspective on the city in its national context, see Argentina. Buenos Aires lies on the southeastern corner of the plain stretching between the Ro Reconquista to the west and the Ro Riachuelo (Matanza) to the southeast. Except for the vast estuary on its eastern side, the federal district is surrounded by Buenos Aires province. Gran (Greater) Buenos Aires is composed of the federal district and 22 adjacent municipalities. The temperate climate of the Pampas (the extensive Argentinian plain), characteristic of the Ro de la Plata's coastal area, is marked by a long summer, abrupt daily changes in temperature, and high humidity. A preponderance of Argentinian industry is located in Buenos Aires proper. Main industries include food processing (meat, fish, and grain), metalworking, automobile assembly, oil refining, printing, and the manufacture of textiles, paper, and chemicals. Service industries are important in suburban areas. The national banking system is controlled by the Banco Central de la Repblica Argentina; private and foreign banks, credit institutions, and a stock market are also located there. The port of Buenos Aires handles more than one-third of the country's shipping. Most of the more than 50 barrios (neighbourhoods) in the city were founded in the 19th century; the more important include San Telmo, in the centro (city centre); the waterfront La Boca, now primarily Italian; and Flores. The centro coincides with the original settlement. Part of the centro is known as the capital zone because it contains the principal government buildings and the larger commercial concerns. The urban core is to be found at the convergence of major avenues on a wide green composed of the Plaza de Mayo and the Parque Coln. Buildings of the 20th century are interspersed with earlier structures; some 17th- and 18th-century examples survive from the Spanish viceregal period. Many luxurious palaces dating from the late 19th or early 20th centuries have been converted for public and private use. The University of Buenos Aires (1821) is the principal university among the more than 40 in the city. Other educational institutions include the Universidad Tecnolgica Nacional (1959), the Universidad Catlica Argentina (1912), and the Universidad del Salvador (1959). Public and institutional libraries include the National Library and that of the National Congress. The city's numerous museums house varied collections of scientific artifacts, fine arts, antiques, and historical memorabilia. The transportation system includes colectivos (microbuses) and taxis. Five expressways radiate from the centro and connect with the encircling General Paz Expressway. The city has five interconnected subway lines, as well as two electrically powered interurban lines running to the towns of Tigre and Moreno, and it is the terminus of the major railways in Argentina. The two international airports of Ezeiza and Don Torcuato are located outside the city limits, in Matanza and Tigre, respectively; the Buenos Aires City Airport also serves flights from neighbouring countries. The port, one of the world's largest, stretches for 5 mi and has an entirely man-made harbour at the west end of an estuary about 175 mi long that requires constant dredging. Area city (federal district), 77 sq mi (200 sq km); metropolitan area, 1,497 sq mi. Pop. (1982 est.) city (federal district), 2,879,000; (1980) metropolitan area, 9,766,030. Additional reading James R. Scobie, Buenos Aires: Plaza to Suburb, 1870-1910 (1974), is the best single volume on the city in English, chronicling the city's transformation from a relatively small town to one of the world's largest metropolitan areas. Dealing with much the same period, Charles S. Sargent, The Spatial Evolution of Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1870-1930 (1974), focuses on the effects of innovations in transportation on urban growth. Horacio A. Difrieri, Buenos Aires: geohistoria de una metropli (1981), chronicles the city's geographical evolution. The entire history of the city is covered in a collection of conference papers, Stanley R. Ross and Thomas F. McGann (eds.), Buenos Aires: 400 Years (1982); and in Jos Luis Romero and Luis Alberto Romero (eds.), Buenos Aires, historia de cuatro siglos, 2 vol. (1983). Various periods of the city's history are examined in R. De Lafuente Machain, Buenos Aires en el siglo XVII (1980), and Buenos Aires en el siglo XVIII (1980); Ricardo Luis Molinari, Buenos Aires, 4 siglos, rev. ed. (1983); Manuel Mujica Linez, Los porteos (1979), essential for cultural history; Jos Mara Pea, Buenos Aires anteayer: testimonios grficos de una ciudad, 1854-1910 (1981), and Buenos Aires ayer: testimonios grficos de una ciudad, 1910-1930 (1984), mostly photographs; and Rmulo Zabala and Enrique De Ganda, Historia de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, 2 vol. (1936, reissued 1980), spanning the years 15361800. Demographic data on the city is readily available in Censo nacional de poblacin y vivienda, 1980, Serie B, Caractersticas generales, in the volume titled Capital federal (1981); and in Buenos Aires, International Demographics, 4(10):111 (October 1985). More statistical data can be found in Argentina's other national censuses. An outstanding work on Buenos Aires' urban poverty and its shantytowns is La pobreza en la Argentina: indicadores de necesidades bsicas insatisfechas a partir de los datos del censo nacional de poblacin y vivienda, 1980 (1984), an official report by the Argentine census bureau. Joseph S. Tulchin