Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
. Argentina covers an area of , making it the
second-largest country in South America after
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, the fourth-largest country in the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
, and the
eighth-largest country in the world. It shares the bulk of the
Southern Cone
The Southern Cone ( es, Cono Sur, pt, Cone Sul) is a geographical and cultural subregion composed of the southernmost areas of South America, mostly south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Traditionally, it covers Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, bou ...
with
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
to the west, and is also bordered by
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
and
Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
to the north, Brazil to the northeast,
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
and the South
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
to the east, and the
Drake Passage
The Drake Passage (referred to as Mar de Hoces Hoces Sea"in Spanish-speaking countries) is the body of water between South America's Cape Horn, Chile and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. It connects the southwestern part of the Atla ...
to the south. Argentina is a
federal state
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-governi ...
subdivided into twenty-three
provinces
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...
, and one
autonomous city
Autonomous city is a type of autonomous administrative division.
Argentina
The 1994 amendment of the Constitution of Argentina granted Buenos Aires city, previously the federal district of Argentina, the status of autonomous city, to allow its ...
, which is the
federal capital
A federal capital is a political entity, often a municipality or capital city, that serves as the seat of the federal government. A federal capital is typically a city that physically encompasses the offices and meeting places of its respective gov ...
and
largest city
The United Nations uses three definitions for what constitutes a city, as not all cities in all jurisdictions are classified using the same criteria. Cities may be defined as the cities proper, the extent of their urban area, or their metropo ...
of the nation,
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a
federal system
Federalism is a combined or compound mode of government that combines a general government (the central or "federal" government) with regional governments ( provincial, state, cantonal, territorial, or other sub-unit governments) in a single po ...
. Argentina claims sovereignty over the
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet ...
,
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
)
, anthem = "God Save the King"
, song_type =
, song =
, image_map = South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in United Kingdom.svg
, map_caption = Location of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in the southern Atlantic Oce ...
, and
a part of Antarctica.
The earliest recorded human presence in modern-day Argentina dates back to the
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
period. The
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...
expanded to the northwest of the country in Pre-Columbian times. The country has its roots in
Spanish colonization
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
of the region during the 16th century. Argentina rose as the successor state of the
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata ( es, Virreinato del Río de la Plata or es, Virreinato de las Provincias del Río de la Plata) meaning "River of the Silver", also called "Viceroyalty of the River Plate" in some scholarly writings, in ...
, a Spanish
overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The
declaration
Declaration may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Declaration'' (book), a self-published electronic pamphlet by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
* ''The Declaration'' (novel), a 2008 children's novel by Gemma Malley
Music ...
and
fight for independence (1810–1818) was followed by an
extended civil war that lasted until 1861, culminating in the country's reorganization as a
federation
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...
. The country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with
several waves of European immigration, mainly
Italians
, flag =
, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
and
Spaniards
Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance peoples, Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of National and regional identity in Spain, national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex Hist ...
, radically reshaping its
cultural
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human Society, societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, and habits of the ...
and
demographic
Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings.
Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...
outlook; over 60% of the population has full or partial Italian ancestry,
and
Argentine culture
The culture of Argentina is as varied as the country's geography and is composed of a mix of ethnic groups. Modern Argentinian culture has been influenced largely by Italian, Spanish, and other European immigration, while there is still a less ...
has significant connections to
Italian culture
Italy is considered one of the birthplaces of Western civilization and a cultural superpower. Italian culture is the culture of the Italians, a Romance ethnic group, and is incredibly diverse spanning the entirety of the Italian peninsula ...
.
The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh-wealthiest nation in the world by the early 20th century. In 1896, Argentina's
GDP per capita
Lists of countries by GDP per capita list the countries in the world by their gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The lists may be based on nominal or purchasing power parity GDP. Gross national income (GNI) per capita accounts for inflows ...
surpassed that of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and was consistently in the top ten before at least 1920. Currently, it is ranked
62nd in the world. Following the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
in the 1930s, Argentina descended into political instability and economic decline that pushed it back into underdevelopment,
although it remained among the fifteen richest countries for several decades. Following the death of President
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón (, , ; 8 October 1895 – 1 July 1974) was an Argentine Army general and politician. After serving in several government positions, including Minister of Labour and Vice President of a military dictatorship, he was elected P ...
in 1974, his widow and vice president,
Isabel Perón
Isabel Martínez de Perón (, born María Estela Martínez Cartas, 4 February 1931), also known as Isabelita, is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads ...
, ascended to the presidency, before being overthrown
in 1976. The following
military junta
A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...
, which was supported by the United States, persecuted and murdered thousands of political critics, activists, and leftists in the
Dirty War
The Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina ( es, dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina, links=no) for the period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 a ...
, a period of
state terrorism
State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111.
Definition
There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper def ...
and civil unrest that lasted until the election of
Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín (12 March 1927 – 31 March 2009) was an Argentine lawyer and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 10 December 1983 to 8 July 1989. He was the first democratically elected president after more than ...
as president in
1983
The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call.
Events January
* January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...
.
Argentina is a
regional power
In international relations, since the late 20thcentury, the term "regional power" has been used for a sovereign state that exercises significant power within a given geographical region.Joachim Betz, Ian Taylor"The Rise of (New) Regional Pow ...
, and retains its historic status as a
middle power
In international relations, a middle power is a sovereign state that is not a great power nor a superpower, but still has large or moderate influence and international recognition.
The concept of the "middle power" dates back to the origins of ...
in international affairs. A
major non-NATO ally
Major non-NATO ally (MNNA) is a designation given by the United States government to close allies that have strategic working relationships with the US Armed Forces but are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While the s ...
of the United States,
Argentina is a
developing country
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
that ranks 47th in the
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...
, the second-highest in
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
after
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
. It maintains the
second-largest economy in South America, and is a member of
G-15 and
G20
The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change mitigation, ...
. Argentina is also a founding member of the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
,
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
,
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...
,
Mercosur
The Southern Common Market, commonly known by Spanish abbreviation Mercosur, and Portuguese Mercosul, is a South American trade bloc established by the Treaty of Asunción in 1991 and Protocol of Ouro Preto in 1994. Its full members are Argentina ...
,
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...
and the
Organization of Ibero-American States
The Organization of Ibero-American States ( es, Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos, pt, Organização de Estados Iberoamericanos, ca, Organització d'Estats Iberoamericans; abbreviated as OEI), formally the Organization of Ibero-American ...
.
Etymology
The description of the region by the word ''Argentina'' has been found on a
Venetian map in 1536.
In English, the name "Argentina" comes from the
Spanish language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...
; however, the naming itself is not Spanish, but
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
. ''Argentina'' (
masculine
Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...
''argentino'') means in Italian "(made) of silver, silver coloured", derived from the Latin "argentum" for silver. In Italian, the adjective or the
proper noun
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', ''Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...
is often used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said ''l'Argentina''.
The name ''Argentina'' was probably first given by the Venetian and Genoese navigators, such as
Giovanni Caboto
John Cabot ( it, Giovanni Caboto ; 1450 – 1500) was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England is the earliest-known European exploration of coastal Nor ...
. In Spanish and Portuguese, the words for "silver" are respectively ''plata'' and ''prata'' and "(made) of silver" is ''plateado'' and ''prateado''. ''Argentina'' was first associated with the
silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the
La Plata Basin
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...
.
The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to ''
La Argentina'', a 1602 poem by
Martín del Barco Centenera Martín del Barco Centenera (1535 – c. 1602) was a Spanish cleric, explorer and author.
A street in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is named after him.
Life
Born 1535 at Logrosán, in the Diocese of Plasencia in Extremadura region (Spain); ...
describing the region. Although "Argentina" was already in common usage by the 18th century, the country was formally named "
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata ( es, Virreinato del Río de la Plata or es, Virreinato de las Provincias del Río de la Plata) meaning "River of the Silver", also called "Viceroyalty of the River Plate" in some scholarly writings, in ...
" by the Spanish Empire, and "
United Provinces of the Río de la Plata
The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata ( es, link=no, Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata), earlier known as the United Provinces of South America ( es, link=no, Provincias Unidas de Sudamérica), was a name adopted in 1816 by the Cong ...
" after independence.
The
1826 constitution included the first use of the name "Argentine Republic" in legal documents. The name "Argentine Confederation" was also commonly used and was formalized in the
Argentine Constitution of 1853
The Argentine Constitution of 1853 is the current constitution of Argentina. It was approved in 1853 by all of the provincial governments except Buenos Aires Province, which remained separate from the Argentine Confederation until 1859. Afte ...
. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the country's name as "Argentine Republic", and that year's constitutional amendment ruled all the names since 1810 as legally valid.
In English, the country was traditionally called "the Argentine", mimicking the typical Spanish usage ''la Argentina'' and perhaps resulting from a mistaken shortening of the fuller name 'Argentine Republic'. 'The Argentine' fell out of fashion during the mid-to-late 20th century, and now the country is referred to as "Argentina".
History
Pre-Columbian era
![Cueva_de_las_Manos_(6811931046)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Cueva_de_las_Manos_%286811931046%29.jpg)
The earliest traces of human life in the area now known as Argentina are dated from the
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
period, with further traces in the
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...
and
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
. Until the period of European colonization, Argentina was relatively sparsely populated by a wide number of diverse cultures with different social organizations, which can be divided into three main groups.
The first group are basic hunters and food gatherers without development of
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...
, such as the
Selknam Selknam or Selk'nam may refer to:
*Selk'nam people
The Selk'nam, also known as the Onawo or Ona people, are an indigenous people in the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile, including the Tierra del Fuego islands. They were one ...
and
Yaghan Yaghan, Yagán or Yahgan may refer to:
* Yahgan people, an ethnic group of Argentina and Chile
* Yahgan language
Yahgan or Yagán (also spelled Yaghan, Jagan, Iakan, and also known as Yámana, Háusi Kúta, or Yágankuta), is an extinct language ...
in the extreme south. The second group are advanced hunters and food gatherers which include the
Puelche,
Querandí
The Querandí were one of the Het peoples, indigenous South Americans who lived in the Pampas area of Argentina; specifically, they were the eastern Didiuhet. The name Querandí was given by the Guaraní people, as they would consume animal fat i ...
and Serranos in the centre-east; and the
Tehuelche in the south—all of them conquered by the
Mapuche
The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who sha ...
spreading from
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
—and the
Kom
Kom or KOM may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Kom people (Afghanistan), a Nuristani tribe in Afghanistan and Pakistan
* Kom people (Cameroon), an ethnic group of northwest Cameroon
* Kom people (India) a subgroup of the Kuki in north-eastern India
* ...
and
Wichi in the north. The last group are farmers with pottery, like the
Charrúa
The Charrúa were an indigenous people or Indigenous Nation of the Southern Cone in present-day Uruguay and the adjacent areas in Argentina ( Entre Ríos) and Brazil ( Rio Grande do Sul). They were a semi-nomadic people who sustained themselve ...
,
Minuane
Minuane were one of the native nations of Uruguay, Argentina (specially in the province of Entre Rios) and Brazil (specially in the state of Rio Grande do Sul). Their territory was along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers. In one source, they are ...
and
Guaraní Guarani, Guaraní or Guarany may refer to
Ethnography
* Guaraní people, an indigenous people from South America's interior (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia)
* Guaraní language, or Paraguayan Guarani, an official language of Paraguay
* ...
in the northeast, with
slash and burn
Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegeta ...
semisedentary existence; the advanced
Diaguita
The Diaguita people are a group of South American indigenous people native to the Chilean Norte Chico and the Argentine Northwest. Western or Chilean Diaguitas lived mainly in the Transverse Valleys which incised in a semi-arid environment. Ea ...
sedentary
trading culture in the northwest, which was conquered by the
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...
around 1480; the
Toconoté
The Tonocotés or Tonokotés are an aboriginal people inhabiting the provinces of Santiago del Estero and Tucumán in Argentina.
The Spaniards called the tonocotés and other peoples of the former Tucumán as ''Juríes'', deformation of the Qu ...
and
Hênîa and Kâmîare in the country's centre, and the
Huarpe
The Huarpes or Warpes are an indigenous people of Argentina, living in the Cuyo region. Some scholars assume that in the Huarpe language, this word means "sandy ground," but according to ''Arte y Vocabulario de la lengua general del Reino de Chi ...
in the centre-west, a culture that raised
llama
The llama (; ) (''Lama glama'') is a domesticated South American camelid, widely used as a List of meat animals, meat and pack animal by Inca empire, Andean cultures since the Pre-Columbian era.
Llamas are social animals and live with othe ...
cattle and was strongly influenced by the Incas.
Colonial era
Europeans first arrived in the region with the 1502 voyage of
Amerigo Vespucci. The Spanish navigators
Juan Díaz de Solís
Juan Díaz de Solís ( – 20 January 1516) was a 16th-century navigator and explorer. He is also said to be the first European to land on what is now modern day Uruguay.
Biography
His origins are disputed. One document records him as a Portuguese ...
and
Sebastian Cabot visited the territory that is now Argentina in 1516 and 1526, respectively. In 1536
Pedro de Mendoza
Pedro de Mendoza () (c. 1499 – June 23, 1537) was a Spanish ''conquistador'', soldier and explorer, and the first ''adelantado'' of New Andalusia.
Setting sail
Pedro de Mendoza was born in Guadix, Grenada, part of a large noble family that ...
founded the small settlement of
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
, which was abandoned in 1541.
Further colonization efforts came from
Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
—establishing the
Governorate of the Río de la Plata
The Governorate of the Río de la Plata (1549−1776) ( es, Gobernación del Río de la Plata, links=no, ) was one of the governorates of the Spanish Empire. It was created in 1549 by Spain in the area around the Río de la Plata.
It was at firs ...
—
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal
, national_motto = "Fi ...
and Chile.
Francisco de Aguirre founded
Santiago del Estero
Santiago del Estero (, Spanish for ''Saint-James-Upon-The-Lagoon'') is the capital of Santiago del Estero Province in northern Argentina. It has a population of 252,192 inhabitants, () making it the twelfth largest city in the country, with a surf ...
in 1553.
Londres
Londres may refer to:
Locations
* London, capital of the United Kingdom and England, called ''Londres'' in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician, and Filipino
* Londres, Catamarca, Argentina, formally "San Juan de la Ribera de Londres" ...
was founded in 1558;
Mendoza, in 1561;
San Juan, in 1562;
San Miguel de Tucumán
San Miguel de Tucumán (; usually called simply Tucumán) is the capital and largest city of Tucumán Province, located in northern Argentina from Buenos Aires. It is the fifth-largest city of Argentina after Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Rosario an ...
, in 1565.
Juan de Garay
Juan de Garay (1528–1583) was a Spanish conquistador.
Garay's birthplace is disputed. Some say it was in the city of Junta de Villalba de Losa in Castile, while others argue he was born in the area of Orduña (Basque Country). There's ...
founded
Santa Fe in 1573 and the same year
Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera
Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera (Sevilla, Spain, 1528 – Lima, 17 August 1574) was a Spanish conquistador, early colonial governor over much of what today is northwestern Argentina, and founder of the city of Córdoba.
Life and times
Cabrera was b ...
set up
Córdoba. Garay went further south to re-found Buenos Aires in 1580.
San Luis was established in 1596.
The
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
subordinated the economic potential of the Argentine territory to the immediate wealth of the silver and gold mines in
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
and Peru, and as such it became part of the
Viceroyalty of Peru
The Viceroyalty of Peru ( es, Virreinato del Perú, links=no) was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed from ...
until the creation of the
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata ( es, Virreinato del Río de la Plata or es, Virreinato de las Provincias del Río de la Plata) meaning "River of the Silver", also called "Viceroyalty of the River Plate" in some scholarly writings, in ...
in 1776 with Buenos Aires as its capital.
Buenos Aires repelled
two ill-fated British invasions in 1806 and 1807. The ideas of the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
and the example of the first
Atlantic Revolutions
The Atlantic Revolutions (22 March 1765 – 4 December 1838) were numerous revolutions in the Atlantic World in the late 18th and early 19th century. Following the Age of Enlightenment, ideas critical of absolutist monarchies began to spread. A ...
generated criticism of the
absolutist monarchy
Absolute monarchy (or Absolutism as a doctrine) is a form of monarchy in which the monarch rules in their own right or power. In an absolute monarchy, the king or queen is by no means limited and has absolute power, though a limited constitut ...
that ruled the country. As in the rest of Spanish America, the overthrow of
Ferdinand VII
, house = Bourbon-Anjou
, father = Charles IV of Spain
, mother = Maria Luisa of Parma
, birth_date = 14 October 1784
, birth_place = El Escorial, Spain
, death_date =
, death_place = Madrid, Spain
, burial_plac ...
during the
Peninsular War
The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain ...
created great concern.
Independence and civil wars
![Smartin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Jos%C3%A9_de_San_Mart%C3%ADn_%28retrato%2C_c.1828%29.jpg)
Beginning a process from which Argentina was to emerge as successor state to the Viceroyalty, the 1810
May Revolution
The May Revolution ( es, Revolución de Mayo) was a week-long series of events that took place from May 18 to 25, 1810, in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. This Spanish colony included roughly the terri ...
replaced the viceroy
Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros
Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros y de la Torre (6 January 1756 – 9 June 1829) was a Spanish naval officer born in Cartagena. He took part in the Battle of Cape St Vincent and the Battle of Trafalgar, and in the Spanish resistance against Napole ...
with the
First Junta, a new government in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
composed by locals. In the first clashes of the Independence War the Junta crushed a royalist
counter-revolution in Córdoba, but failed to overcome those of the
Banda Oriental
Banda Oriental, or more fully Banda Oriental del Uruguay (Eastern Bank), was the name of the South American territories east of the Uruguay River and north of Río de la Plata that comprise the modern nation of Uruguay; the modern state of Rio Gra ...
,
Upper Peru
Upper Peru (; ) is a name for the land that was governed by the Real Audiencia of Charcas. The name originated in Buenos Aires towards the end of the 18th century after the Audiencia of Charcas was transferred from the Viceroyalty of Peru to th ...
and
Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
, which later became independent states. The French-Argentine
Hippolyte Bouchard
Hippolyte or Hipólito Bouchard (15 January 1780 – 4 January 1837) was a French-born Argentine sailor and corsair who fought for Argentina, Chile, and Peru.
During his first campaign as an Argentine corsair he attacked the Spanish colonies o ...
then brought his fleet to wage war against Spain overseas and attacked
Spanish California
The history of California can be divided into the Native American period (about 10,000 years ago until 1542), the European exploration period (1542–1769), the Spanish colonial period (1769–1821), the Mexican period (1821–1848), and Uni ...
,
Spanish Chile,
Spanish Peru
The Viceroyalty of Peru ( es, Virreinato del Perú, links=no) was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed from ...
and
Spanish Philippines
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
. He secured the allegiance of escaped Filipinos in San Blas who defected from the Spanish to join the Argentine navy, due to common Argentine and Philippine grievances against Spanish colonization. At a later date, the Argentine
Sun of May
The Sun of May () is a national emblem of Argentina and Uruguay, and appears on the flags of both countries.
__TOC__
History
According to Diego Abad de Santillán, the Sun of May represents Inti, the Incan god of the sun.
The specification ...
was adopted as a symbol by the Filipinos in the
Philippine Revolution against Spain. He also secured the diplomatic recognition of Argentina from King
Kamehameha I
Kamehameha I (; Kalani Paiea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiikui Kamehameha o Iolani i Kaiwikapu kaui Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea; – May 8 or 14, 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the conqueror and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. T ...
of the
Kingdom of Hawaii
The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island ...
. Historian Pacho O'Donnell affirms that Hawaii was the first state that recognized Argentina's independence.
Revolutionaries split into two antagonist groups: the
Centralists and the
Federalists
The term ''federalist'' describes several political beliefs around the world. It may also refer to the concept of parties, whose members or supporters called themselves ''Federalists''.
History Europe federation
In Europe, proponents of de ...
—a move that would define Argentina's first decades of independence. The
Assembly of the Year XIII
The Assembly of Year XIII ( es, Asamblea del Año XIII) was a meeting called by the Second Triumvirate governing the young republic of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (modern-day Argentina, Uruguay, part of Bolivia) on October 1812 ...
appointed
Gervasio Antonio de Posadas
Gervasio Antonio de Posadas y Dávila (18 June 1757, in Buenos Aires – 2 July 1833, in Buenos Aires) was a member of Argentina's Second Triumvirate from 19 August 1813 to 31 January 1814, after which he served as Supreme Director until 9 Janua ...
as Argentina's first
Supreme Director.
On 9 July 1816, the
Congress of Tucumán
The Congress of Tucumán was the representative assembly, initially meeting in San Miguel de Tucumán, that declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America (modern-day Argentina, Uruguay, part of Bolivia) on July 9, 1816, fro ...
formalized the
Declaration of Independence
A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the ...
, which is now celebrated as Independence Day, a national holiday. One year later General
Martín Miguel de Güemes
Martín Miguel de Güemes (8 February 1785 – 17 June 1821) was a military leader and popular caudillo who defended northwestern Argentina from the Spanish royalist army during the Argentine War of Independence.
Biography
Güemes was born in Sa ...
stopped royalists on the north, and General
José de San Martín
José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras (25 February 177817 August 1850), known simply as José de San Martín () or '' the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru'', was an Argentine general and the primary leader of the southern and cent ...
took an army
across the Andes and secured the
independence of Chile; then he led the fight to the Spanish stronghold of
Lima
Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of t ...
and proclaimed the
independence of Peru
The Peruvian War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia del Perú, links=no) consisted in a series of military conflicts in Peru beginning with viceroy Abascal military victories in the south frontier in 1809, in La Paz revolution a ...
. In 1819 Buenos Aires enacted a
centralist constitution that was soon
abrogated by federalists.
Some of the most important figures of Argentinean independence made a proposal known as the
Inca plan
The Inca plan was a proposal formulated in 1816 by Manuel Belgrano to the Congress of Tucumán, aiming to crown an Inca. After the Declaration of Independence of the United Provinces of South America (modern Argentina), the Congress discussed the f ...
of 1816, which proposed that
United Provinces of the Río de la Plata
The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata ( es, link=no, Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata), earlier known as the United Provinces of South America ( es, link=no, Provincias Unidas de Sudamérica), was a name adopted in 1816 by the Cong ...
(Present Argentina) should be a monarchy, led by a descendant of the
Inca
The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...
. Juan Bautista Túpac Amaru (half-brother of
Túpac Amaru II
José Gabriel Condorcanqui ( – May 18, 1781)known as Túpac Amaru II was an indigenous Cacique who led a large Andean rebellion against the Spanish in Peru. He later became a mythical figure in the Peruvian struggle for independence and in ...
) was proposed as monarch. Some examples of those who supported this proposal were
Manuel Belgrano
Manuel José Joaquín del Corazón de Jesús Belgrano y González (3 June 1770 – 20 June 1820), usually referred to as Manuel Belgrano (), was an Argentine public servant, economist, lawyer, politician, journalist, and military leader. He ...
,
José de San Martín
José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras (25 February 177817 August 1850), known simply as José de San Martín () or '' the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru'', was an Argentine general and the primary leader of the southern and cent ...
and
Martín Miguel de Güemes
Martín Miguel de Güemes (8 February 1785 – 17 June 1821) was a military leader and popular caudillo who defended northwestern Argentina from the Spanish royalist army during the Argentine War of Independence.
Biography
Güemes was born in Sa ...
. The
Congress of Tucumán
The Congress of Tucumán was the representative assembly, initially meeting in San Miguel de Tucumán, that declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America (modern-day Argentina, Uruguay, part of Bolivia) on July 9, 1816, fro ...
finally decided to reject the Inca plan, creating instead a republican, centralist state.
The 1820
Battle of Cepeda, fought between the Centralists and the Federalists, resulted in the ''end of the Supreme Director rule''. In 1826 Buenos Aires enacted another
centralist constitution, with
Bernardino Rivadavia
Bernardino de la Trinidad González Rivadavia (May 20, 1780 – September 2, 1845) was the first President of Argentina, then called the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, from February 8, 1826 to June 27, 1827.
He was educated at th ...
being appointed as the first president of the country. However, the interior provinces soon rose against him, forced his resignation and discarded the constitution. Centralists and Federalists resumed the civil war; the latter prevailed and formed the
Argentine Confederation
The Argentine Confederation (Spanish: ''Confederación Argentina'') was the last predecessor state of modern Argentina; its name is still one of the official names of the country according to the Argentine Constitution, Article 35. It was the name ...
in 1831, led by
Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rosas (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confederation. Althoug ...
. During his regime he faced a
French blockade
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...
(1838–1840), the
War of the Confederation
The War of the Confederation ( es, Guerra de la Confederación) was a military confrontation waged by Chile, along with Peruvian dissidents, and the Argentine Confederation against the Peru–Bolivian Confederation between 1836 and 1839. As ...
(1836–1839), and a combined
Anglo-French blockade (1845–1850), but remained undefeated and prevented further loss of national territory. His trade restriction policies, however, angered the interior provinces and in 1852
Justo José de Urquiza
Justo José de Urquiza y García (; October 18, 1801 – April 11, 1870) was an Argentine general and politician who served as president of the Argentine Confederation from 1854 to 1860.
Life
Justo José de Urquiza y García was b ...
, another powerful
caudillo
A ''caudillo'' ( , ; osp, cabdillo, from Latin , diminutive of ''caput'' "head") is a type of personalist leader wielding military and political power. There is no precise definition of ''caudillo'', which is often used interchangeably with " ...
,
beat him out of power. As new president of the Confederation, Urquiza enacted the
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
and federal 1853 Constitution.
Buenos Aires seceded but was forced back into the Confederation after being defeated in the 1859
Battle of Cepeda.
Rise of the modern nation
![25 de mayo por F](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/25_de_mayo_por_F._Fortuny.jpg)
Overpowering Urquiza in the 1861
Battle of Pavón
The Battle of Pavón, a key battle of the Argentine Civil Wars, was fought in Pavón, Santa Fé Province, Argentina on 17 September 1861 between the Army of the State of Buenos Aires, commanded by Bartolomé Mitre, and the Army of Republic of ...
,
Bartolomé Mitre
Bartolomé Mitre Martínez (26 June 1821 – 19 January 1906) was an Argentine statesman, soldier and author. He was President of Argentina from 1862 to 1868 and the first president of unified Argentina.
Mitre is known as the most versatile ...
secured Buenos Aires predominance and was elected as the first president of the reunified country. He was followed by
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (; born Domingo Faustino Fidel Valentín Sarmiento y Albarracín; 15 February 1811 – 11 September 1888) was an Argentine activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and the second President of Argentina. His writing s ...
and
Nicolás Avellaneda
Nicolás Remigio Aurelio Avellaneda Silva (3 October 1837 – 24 November 1885) was an Argentine politician and journalist, and President of Argentina from 1874 to 1880. Avellaneda's main projects while in office were banking and education ...
; these three presidencies set up the basis of the modern Argentine State.
Starting with
Julio Argentino Roca
Alejo Julio Argentino Roca Paz (July 17, 1843 – October 19, 1914) was an army general and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 1880 to 1886 and from 1898 to 1904. Roca is the most important representative of the Generation ...
in 1880, ten consecutive federal governments emphasized
liberal economic policies. The
massive wave of European immigration they promoted—second only to the United States'—led to a near-reinvention of Argentine society and economy that by 1908 had placed the country as the seventh wealthiest developed nation in the world.
Driven by this
immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
wave and decreasing mortality, the Argentine population grew fivefold and the economy 15-fold: from 1870 to 1910 Argentina's
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
exports went from per year, while frozen beef exports increased from per year, placing Argentina as one of the world's top five exporters. Its railway mileage rose from . Fostered by a new
public, compulsory, free and secular education system,
literacy
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...
quickly increased from 22% to 65%, a level higher than most
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
n nations would reach even fifty years later. Furthermore, real
GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...
grew so fast that despite the huge immigration influx,
per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population.
Per capita i ...
between 1862 and 1920 went from 67% of developed country levels to 100%: In 1865, Argentina was already one of the top 25 nations by per capita income. By 1908, it had surpassed Denmark, Canada and the Netherlands to reach 7th place—behind Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Belgium. Argentina's per capita income was 70% higher than Italy's, 90% higher than Spain's, 180% higher than Japan's and 400% higher than
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
's. Despite these unique achievements, the country was slow to meet its original goals of industrialization: after steep development of capital-intensive local industries in the 1920s, a significant part of the manufacture sector remained labour-intensive in the 1930s.
![General Don Julio Argentino Roca](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/General_Don_Julio_Argentino_Roca.jpg)
Between 1878 and 1884 the so-called
Conquest of the Desert
The Conquest of the Desert ( es, Conquista del desierto) was an Argentine military campaign directed mainly by General Julio Argentino Roca in the 1870s with the intention of establishing dominance over the Patagonian Desert, inhabited primari ...
occurred, with the purpose of giving by means of the constant confrontations between natives and Criollos in the border, and the appropriation of the indigenous territories, tripling the Argentine territory. The first conquest, consisted of a series of military incursions into the Pampa and Patagonian territories dominated by the indigenous peoples, distributing them among the members of the ''Sociedad Rural Argentina'', financiers of the expeditions. The conquest of Chaco lasted up to the end of the century, since its full ownership of the national economic system only took place when the mere extraction of wood and
tannin
Tannins (or tannoids) are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids.
The term ''tannin'' (from Anglo-Norman ''tanner'', ...
was replaced by the production of
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...
. The Argentine government considered
indigenous people
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
as inferior beings, without the same rights as Criollos and Europeans.
In 1912, President
Roque Sáenz Peña
Roque José Antonio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Sáenz Peña Lahitte (19 March 1851 – 9 August 1914) was an Argentine politician and lawyer who served as President of Argentina from 12 October 1910 to his death in office on 9 August 1914. ...
enacted
universal and secret male suffrage, which allowed
Hipólito Yrigoyen
Juan Hipólito del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Yrigoyen (; 12 July 1852 – 3 July 1933) was an Argentine politician of the Radical Civic Union and two-time President of Argentina, who served his first term from 1916 to 1922 and his second ...
, leader of the
Radical Civic Union
The Radical Civic Union ( es, Unión Cívica Radical, UCR) is a centrist and social-liberal political party in Argentina. It has been ideologically heterogeneous, ranging from social liberalism to social democracy. The UCR is a member of the So ...
(or UCR), to win
the 1916 election. He enacted social and economic reforms and extended assistance to small farms and businesses. Argentina stayed neutral during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. The second administration of Yrigoyen faced an economic crisis, precipitated by the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
.
In 1930, Yrigoyen
was ousted from power by the military led by
José Félix Uriburu
Lieutenant General José Félix Benito Uriburu y Uriburu (20 July 186829 April 1932) was the President of the Provisional Government of Argentina, ousting the successor to President Hipólito Yrigoyen by means of a military coup and declaring ...
. Although Argentina remained among the fifteen richest countries until mid-century, this
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
marks the start of the steady economic and social decline that pushed the country back into underdevelopment.
Uriburu ruled for two years; then
Agustín Pedro Justo
Agustín Pedro Justo Rolón (26 February 1876 – 11 January 1943) was an Argentine military officer, diplomat and politician, who served as the president of Argentina from 1932 to 1938 during the Infamous Decade. Justo took part in the coup of ...
was elected in a
fraudulent election, and signed a controversial
treaty with the United Kingdom. Argentina
stayed neutral during World War II, a decision that had full British support but was rejected by the United States after the
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
. In 1943
a military coup d'état, led by
General Arturo Rawson toppled the democratically elected government of
Ramón Castillo
Ramón Antonio Castillo Barrionuevo (November 20, 1873 – October 12, 1944) was a conservative Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from June 27, 1942 to June 4, 1943. He was a leading figure in the period known as t ...
. Under pressure from the United States, later Argentina declared war on the Axis Powers (on 27 March 1945, roughly a month before the
end of World War II in Europe
The final battle of the European Theatre of World War II continued after the definitive overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin. After German dictator Adolf H ...
).
During the Rawson dictatorship a relatively unknown military colonel named
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón (, , ; 8 October 1895 – 1 July 1974) was an Argentine Army general and politician. After serving in several government positions, including Minister of Labour and Vice President of a military dictatorship, he was elected P ...
was named head of the Labour Department. Perón quickly managed to climb the political ladder, being named Ministry of Defence by 1944. Being perceived as a political threat by rivals in the military and the conservative camp, he was forced to resign in 1945, and was arrested days later. He was finally released under mounting pressure from both his base and several allied unions. He would later become president after a landslide victory over the
UCR in the
1946 general election as the
Laborioust candidate.
Peronist years
![Juan_y_Eva_Oficial](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Juan_y_Eva_Oficial.jpg)
The
Labour Party (later renamed
Justicialist Party
The Justicialist Party ( es, Partido Justicialista, ; abbr. PJ) is a major political party in Argentina, and the largest branch within Peronism.
Current president Alberto Fernández belongs to the Justicialist Party (and has, since 2021, served ...
), the most powerful and influential party in Argentine history, came into power with the rise of Juan Perón to the presidency in 1946. He
nationalized
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
strategic industries and services, improved wages and working conditions, paid the full
external debt
A country's gross external debt (or foreign debt) is the liabilities that are owed to nonresidents by residents. The debtors can be governments, corporations or citizens. External debt may be denominated in domestic or foreign currency. It incl ...
and claimed he achieved nearly
full employment
Full employment is a situation in which there is no cyclical or unemployment#Cyclical unemployment, deficient-demand unemployment. Full employment does not entail the disappearance of all unemployment, as other kinds of unemployment, namely Structu ...
. He pushed Congress to enact
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
in 1947, and developed a system of social assistance for the most vulnerable sectors of society. The economy began to decline in 1950 due in part to government expenditures and the
protectionist
Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...
economic policies.
He also engaged in a campaign of political suppression. Anyone who was perceived to be a political dissident or potential rival was subject to threats, physical violence and harassment. The Argentine
intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...
, the middle-class, university students, and professors were seen as particularly troublesome. Perón fired over 2,000 university professors and faculty members from all major public education institutions.
Perón tried to bring most trade and labour unions under his thumb, regularly resorting to violence when needed. For instance, the meat-packers union leader,
Cipriano Reyes Cipriano may refer to:
* Cipriano (given name) Cipriano is a masculine given name. Notable people with the name include:
First name
* Cipriano Branco (born 1985), East Timorese footballer
* Cipriano Cassamá (21st century), Bissau-Guinean polit ...
, organised strikes in protest against the government after elected labour movement officials were forcefully replaced by Peronist puppets from the
Peronist Party
The Justicialist Party ( es, Partido Justicialista, ; abbr. PJ) is a major political party in Argentina, and the largest branch within Peronism.
Current president Alberto Fernández belongs to the Justicialist Party (and has, since 2021, served ...
. Reyes was soon arrested on charges of terrorism, though the allegations were never substantiated. Reyes,who was never formally charged, was tortured in prison for five years and only released after the regime's downfall in 1955.
Perón
managed to get reelected in 1951. His wife
Eva Perón
María Eva Duarte de Perón (; ; 7 May 1919 – 26 July 1952), better known as just Eva Perón or by the nickname Evita (), was an Argentine politician, activist, actress, and philanthropist who served as First Lady of Argentina from June 194 ...
, who played a critical role in the party, died of cancer in 1952. As the economy continued to tank, Perón started losing popular support, and came to be seen as a threat to the national process. The Navy took advantage of Perón's withering political power, and
bombed the Plaza de Mayo in 1955. Perón survived the attack, but a few months later, during the
Liberating Revolution coup, he was deposed and went into
exile
Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...
in Spain.
Revolución Libertadora
![Plaza-Mayo-bombardeo-1955](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Plaza-Mayo-bombardeo-1955.JPG)
The new head of State,
Pedro Eugenio Aramburu
Pedro Eugenio Aramburu Silveti (May 21, 1903 – June 1, 1970) was an Argentine Army general. He was a major figure behind the '' Revolución Libertadora'', the military coup against Juan Perón in 1955. He became dictator of Argentina, serving ...
,
proscribed
Proscription ( la, proscriptio) is, in current usage, a 'decree of condemnation to death or banishment' (''Oxford English Dictionary'') and can be used in a political context to refer to state-approved murder or banishment. The term originated ...
Peronism and banned the party from any future elections.
Arturo Frondizi
Arturo Frondizi Ércoli (October 28, 1908 – April 18, 1995) was an Argentines, Argentine lawyer, journalist, teacher and politician, who was elected President of Argentina and ruled between May 1, 1958 and March 29, 1962, when he was over ...
from the
UCR won the
1958 general election. He encouraged investment to achieve energetic and industrial self-sufficiency, reversed a chronic
trade deficit
The balance of trade, commercial balance, or net exports (sometimes symbolized as NX), is the difference between the monetary value of a nation's exports and imports over a certain time period. Sometimes a distinction is made between a balance ...
and lifted the ban on Peronism; yet his efforts to stay on good terms with both the Peronists and the military earned him the rejection of both and a new coup forced him out. Amidst the political turmoil, Senate leader
José María Guido
José María Guido (29 August 1910 – 13 June 1975) was President of Argentina, from 30 March 1962 to 12 October 1963.
Biography
Early life
José María Guido was born in Buenos Aires on August 29, 1910. He was one of two sons of J.M.E. ...
reacted swiftly and applied anti-
power vacuum
In political science and political history, the term power vacuum, also known as a power void, is an analogy between a physical vacuum to the political condition "when someone in a place of power, has lost control of something and no one has repla ...
legislation, ascending to the presidency himself; elections were repealed and Peronism was prohibited once again.
Arturo Illia
Arturo Umberto Illia (; 4 August 1900 – 18 January 1983) was an Argentine politician and physician, who was President of Argentina from 12 October 1963, to 28 June 1966. He was a member of the centrist Radical Civic Union.
Illia reached the ...
was
elected in 1963 and led an increase in prosperity across the board; however he was overthrown in 1966 by another military
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
led by General
Juan Carlos Onganía
Juan Carlos Onganía Carballo (; 17 March 1914 – 8 June 1995) was President of Argentina from 29 June 1966 to 8 June 1970. He rose to power as dictator after toppling the president Arturo Illia in a coup d'état self-named ''Revolución Argen ...
in the self-proclaimed
Argentine Revolution
Argentine Revolution ( es, Revolución Argentina, links=no) was the name given by its leaders to a military coup d'état which overthrew the government of Argentina in June 1966 and began a period of military dictatorship by a junta from then ...
, creating a new military government that sought to rule indefinitely.
Perón's return and death
![Asunción_de_Juan_Domingo_Perón_e_Isabel_Perón,_1973](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Asunci%C3%B3n_de_Juan_Domingo_Per%C3%B3n_e_Isabel_Per%C3%B3n%2C_1973.png)
Following several years of military rule,
Alejandro Agustín Lanusse was appointed president by the
military junta
A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...
in 1971. Under increasing political pressure for the return of democracy, Lanusse called for elections in 1973. Perón was banned from running but the Peronist party was allowed to participate. The presidential elections were won by Perón's surrogate candidate,
Hector Cámpora
In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...
, a left-wing Peronist, who took office on 25 May 1973. A month later, in June, Perón returned from Spain. One of Cámpora's first presidential actions was to grant amnesty to members of organizations that had carried out political assassinations and terrorist attacks, and to those who had been tried and sentenced to prison by judges. Cámpora's months-long tenure in government was beset by political and social unrest. Over 600 social conflicts,
strikes, and
factory occupations
Occupation of factories is a method of the workers' movement used to prevent lock outs. They may sometimes lead to "recovered factories", in which the workers self-manage the factories.
They have been used in many strike actions, including:
*t ...
took place within a single month. Even though far-left terrorist organisations had suspended their armed struggle, their joining with the
participatory democracy
Participatory democracy, participant democracy or participative democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected rep ...
process was interpreted as a direct threat by the Peronist right-wing faction.
Amid a state of political, social, and economic upheaval, Cámpora and Vice President Vicente Solano Lima resigned in July 1973, calling for new elections, but this time with Perón as the Justicialist Party nominee. Perón won the election with his wife
Isabel Perón
Isabel Martínez de Perón (, born María Estela Martínez Cartas, 4 February 1931), also known as Isabelita, is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads ...
as vice president. Perón's third term was marked by escalating conflict between left and right-wing factions within the Peronist party, as well as the return of armed terror guerrilla groups like the Guevarist
ERP, leftist Peronist
Montoneros
Montoneros ( es, link=no, Movimiento Peronista Montonero-MPM) was an Argentine left-wing Peronist guerrilla organization, active throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. The name is an allusion to the 19th-century cavalry militias called Montoner ...
, and the state-backed far-right
Triple A. After a series of heart attacks and with signs of pneumonia in 1974, Perón's health deteriorated quickly. He suffered a final heart attack on Monday, 1 July 1974, and died at 13:15. He was 78 years old. After his death,
Isabel Perón
Isabel Martínez de Perón (, born María Estela Martínez Cartas, 4 February 1931), also known as Isabelita, is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads ...
, his wife and vice president, succeeded him in office. During her presidency, a military junta, along with the Peronists' far-right fascist faction, once again became the
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
head of state
A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and l ...
. Isabel Perón served as President of Argentina from 1974 until 1976, when she was ousted by the military. Her short presidency was marked by the collapse of Argentine political and social systems, leading to a constitutional crisis that paved the way for a decade of instability, left-wing terrorist guerrilla attacks, and state-sponsored terrorism.
[
]
National Reorganization Process
The "Dirty War" ( es, Guerra Sucia, links=no) was part of Operation Condor
Operation Condor ( es, link=no, Operación Cóndor, also known as ''Plan Cóndor''; pt, Operação Condor) was a United States–backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of o ...
, which included the participation of other right-wing dictatorships in the Southern Cone
The Southern Cone ( es, Cono Sur, pt, Cone Sul) is a geographical and cultural subregion composed of the southernmost areas of South America, mostly south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Traditionally, it covers Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, bou ...
. The Dirty War involved state terrorism
State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111.
Definition
There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper def ...
in Argentina and elsewhere in the Southern Cone against political dissidents, with military and security forces employing urban and rural violence against left-wing guerrillas, political dissidents, and anyone believed to be associated with socialism or somehow contrary to the neoliberal
Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
economic policies of the regime. Victims of the violence in Argentina alone included an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 left-wing activists and militants, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
s, Peronist
Peronism, also called justicialism,. The Justicialist Party is the main Peronist party in Argentina, it derives its name from the concept of social justice., name=, group= is an Argentine political movement based on the ideas and legacy of Ar ...
guerrillas, and alleged sympathizers. Most of the victims were casualties of state terrorism
State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111.
Definition
There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper def ...
. The opposing guerrillas' victims numbered nearly 500–540 military and police officials and up to 230 civilians. Argentina received technical support and military aid from the United States government during the Johnson
Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...
, Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
, Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
, Carter
Carter(s), or Carter's, Tha Carter, or The Carter(s), may refer to:
Geography United States
* Carter, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Carter, Mississippi, an unincorporated community
* Carter, Montana, a census-designated place
* Carter, ...
, and Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
administrations.
The exact chronology of the repression is still debated, yet the roots of the long political war may have started in 1969 when trade unionists were targeted for assassination by Peronist and Marxist paramilitaries. Individual cases of state-sponsored terrorism
State-sponsored terrorism is terrorist violence carried out with the active support of national governments provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in several ways, including but not limited to funding terrorist ...
against Peronism and the left can be traced back even further to the Bombing of Plaza de Mayo
The Bombing of Plaza de Mayo was a massacre that took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 16 June 1955. 30 aircraft from the Argentine Navy and Argentine Air Force, Air Force strafed and bombed Plaza de Mayo square in Buenos Aires in the large ...
in 1955. The Trelew massacre
The Trelew Massacre was a mass execution of 16 political prisoners, militants of different Peronist and left organizations, in Rawson prison by the military dictatorship of Argentina. The prisoners were recaptured after an escape attempt and sub ...
of 1972, the actions of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance
The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance ( es, Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, links=no, usually known as Triple A or AAA) was an Argentine Peronist political action group operated by a sector of the Federal Police and the Argentine Armed Forces, ...
commencing in 1973, and Isabel Perón
Isabel Martínez de Perón (, born María Estela Martínez Cartas, 4 February 1931), also known as Isabelita, is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads ...
's "annihilation decrees" against left-wing guerrillas during ''Operativo Independencia
Operativo Independencia ("Operation Independence") was a 1975 Argentine military operation in Tucumán Province to crush the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), a Guevarist guerrilla group which tried to create a Vietnam-style war front in the no ...
'' (Operation Independence) in 1975, are also possible events signaling the beginning of the Dirty War.
Onganía shut down Congress, banned all political parties, and dismantled student and worker unions. In 1969, popular discontent led to two massive protests: the ''Cordobazo
The Cordobazo was a civil uprising in the city of Córdoba, Argentina, at the end of May 1969, during the military dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía, which occurred a few days after the '' Rosariazo'', and a year after the global protes ...
'' and the ''Rosariazo
The Rosariazo () was a protest movement that consisted in demonstrations and strikes, in Rosario, , between May and September 1969, during the military dictatorial rule of ''de facto'' President General Juan Carlos Onganía. The Rosariazo was ...
''. The terrorist guerrilla organization Montoneros
Montoneros ( es, link=no, Movimiento Peronista Montonero-MPM) was an Argentine left-wing Peronist guerrilla organization, active throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. The name is an allusion to the 19th-century cavalry militias called Montoner ...
kidnapped and executed Aramburu. The newly chosen head of government, Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, seeking to ease the growing political pressure, allowed Héctor José Cámpora
Héctor José Cámpora (26 March 190918 December 1980) was an Argentine politician. A major figure of left-wing Peronism, Cámpora was briefly Argentine president from 25 May to 13 July 1973 and subsequently arranged for Perón to run for preside ...
to become the Peronist candidate instead of Perón. Cámpora won the March 1973 election, issued pardons
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...
for condemned guerrilla members, and then secured Perón's return from his exile in Spain.
On the day Perón returned to Argentina, the clash between Peronist internal factions—right-wing
Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...
union leaders and left-wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
youth from the Montoneros—resulted in the Ezeiza Massacre. Overwhelmed by political violence, Cámpora resigned and Perón won the following September 1973 election with his third wife Isabel
Isabel is a female name of Spanish origin. Isabelle is a name that is similar, but it is of French origin. It originates as the medieval Spanish form of '' Elisabeth'' (ultimately Hebrew ''Elisheva''), Arising in the 12th century, it became popul ...
as vice-president. He expelled Montoneros from the party and they became once again a clandestine organization. José López Rega
José López Rega (17 November 1916 – 9 June 1989) was an Argentine politician who served as Minister of Social Welfare from 1973 to 1975, first under Juan Perón and continuing under Isabel Perón, Juan Perón's third wife and presidential su ...
organized the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance
The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance ( es, Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, links=no, usually known as Triple A or AAA) was an Argentine Peronist political action group operated by a sector of the Federal Police and the Argentine Armed Forces, ...
(AAA) to fight against them and the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP).
Perón died in July 1974 and was succeeded by his wife, who signed a secret decree empowering the military and the police to "annihilate" the left-wing subversion, stopping ERP's attempt to start a rural insurgence in Tucumán province. Isabel Perón was ousted one year later by a junta of the combined armed forces, led by army general Jorge Rafael Videla
Jorge Rafael Videla (; ; 2 August 1925 – 17 May 2013) was an Argentine military officer and dictator, Commander in Chief of the Army, member of the Military Junta, and ''de facto'' President of Argentina from 29 March 1976 to 29 March 1981. H ...
. They initiated the National Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: ''Proceso de Reorganización Nacional'', often simply ''el Proceso'', "the Process") was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, in which it was supported by the United Sta ...
, often shortened to ''Proceso''.
The ''Proceso'' shut down Congress, removed the judges on the Supreme Court, banned political parties and unions, and resorted to employing the forced disappearance
An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organiza ...
of suspected guerrilla members including individuals suspected of being associated with the left-wing. By the end of 1976, the Montoneros had lost nearly 2,000 members and by 1977, the ERP was completely subdued. Nevertheless, the severely weakened Montoneros launched a counterattack in 1979, which was quickly put down, effectively ending the guerrilla threat and securing the junta's position in power.
In 1982, the head of state, General Leopoldo Galtieri
Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri (; 15 July 1926 12 January 2003) was an Argentine general and politician of Italian descent who served as President of Argentina from December 1981 to June 1982. Galtieri ruled as a military dictator during the Natio ...
, authorised the invasion of the British territories of South Georgia and, on 2 April, of the Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet ...
. The occupation provoked a military response from the United Kingdom leading to the Falklands War
The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...
. Argentine forces were defeated and surrendered to British troops on 14 June. Street riots in Buenos Aires followed the defeat and the military leadership responsible for the humiliation withdrew. Reynaldo Bignone replaced Galtieri and began to organize the transition to democratic governance.
Return to democracy
Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín (12 March 1927 – 31 March 2009) was an Argentine lawyer and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 10 December 1983 to 8 July 1989. He was the first democratically elected president after more than ...
won the 1983 elections
The following elections occurred in the year 1983.
Africa
* 1983 Cameroonian parliamentary election
* 1983 Equatorial Guinean legislative election
* 1983 Kenyan general election
* 1983 Malagasy parliamentary election
* 1983 Malawian general elec ...
campaigning for the prosecution of those responsible for human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
violations during the ''Proceso'': the Trial of the Juntas
The Trial of the Juntas ( es, Juicio a las Juntas) was the judicial trial of the members of the ''de facto'' military government that ruled Argentina during the dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (''el proceso''), which laste ...
and other martial courts sentenced all the coup's leaders but, under military pressure, he also enacted the Full Stop
The full stop (Commonwealth English), period (North American English), or full point , is a punctuation mark. It is used for several purposes, most often to mark the end of a declarative sentence (as distinguished from a question or exclamation ...
and Due Obedience laws, which halted prosecutions further down the chain of command
A command hierarchy is a group of people who carry out orders based on others' authority within the group. It can be viewed as part of a power structure, in which it is usually seen as the most vulnerable and also the most powerful part.
Milit ...
. The worsening economic crisis and hyperinflation
In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimize their holdings in that currency as t ...
reduced his popular support and the Peronist Carlos Menem
Carlos Saúl Menem (2 July 1930 – 14 February 2021) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999. Ideologically, he identified as a Peronist and supported economically liberal policies. H ...
won the 1989 election. Soon after, riots forced Alfonsín to an early resignation.
Menem embraced and enacted neoliberal
Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
policies: a fixed exchange rate
A fixed exchange rate, often called a pegged exchange rate, is a type of exchange rate regime in which a currency's value is fixed or pegged by a monetary authority against the value of another currency, a basket of other currencies, or another m ...
, business deregulation
Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a ...
, privatization
Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
s, and the dismantling of protectionist
Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...
barriers normalized the economy in the short term. He pardoned the officers who had been sentenced during Alfonsín's government. The 1994 Constitutional Amendment allowed Menem to be elected for a second term. With the economy beginning to decline in 1995, and with increasing unemployment and recession, the UCR, led by Fernando de la Rúa
Fernando de la Rúa (15 September 19379 July 2019) was an Argentine politician and a member of the Radical Civic Union (UCR) political party who served as President of Argentina from 10 December 1999 to 21 December 2001. De la Rúa was born in ...
, returned to the presidency in the 1999 elections
The following elections occurred in the year 1999.
* 1999 electoral calendar
Africa
* 1999 Algerian presidential election
* 1999 Botswana general election
* 1999 Beninese parliamentary election
* 1999 Central African Republic presidential elect ...
.
De la Rúa left Menem's economic plan in effect despite the worsening crisis, which led to growing social discontent. Massive capital flight
Capital flight, in economics, occurs when assets or money rapidly flow out of a country, due to an event of economic consequence or as the result of a political event such as regime change or economic globalization. Such events could be an increas ...
from the country was responded to with a freezing of bank accounts, generating further turmoil. The December 2001 riots forced him to resign. Congress appointed Eduardo Duhalde
Eduardo Alberto Duhalde (; born 5 October 1941) is an Argentine Peronist politician who served as the interim President of Argentina from January 2002 to May 2003. He also served as Vice President and Governor of Buenos Aires in the 1990s.
Bor ...
as acting president, who revoked the fixed exchange rate established by Menem, causing many working- and middle-class Argentines to lose a significant portion of their savings. By late 2002, the economic crisis began to recede, but the assassination of two ''piquetero
A ''piquetero'' is a member of a group that has blocked a street with the purpose of demonstrating and calling attention over a particular issue or demand. The word is a neologism in the Spanish of Argentina, coming from ''piquete'' (in English ...
s'' by the police caused political unrest, prompting Duhalde to move elections forward. Néstor Kirchner
Néstor Carlos Kirchner (; 25 February 195027 October 2010) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007, Governor of Santa Cruz Province from 1991 to 2003, Secretary General of UNASUR and ...
was elected as the new president. On 26 May 2003, he was sworn in.
Boosting the neo-Keynesianism, neo-Keynesian economic policies laid by Duhalde, Kirchner ended the economic crisis attaining significant fiscal and trade surpluses, and rapid Gross domestic product, GDP growth. Under his administration, Argentina Argentine debt restructuring, restructured its defaulted debt with an unprecedented discount of about 70% on most bonds, paid off debts with the International Monetary Fund, purged the military of officers with dubious human rights records, void (law), nullified and voided the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws, ruled them as unconstitutional, and resumed legal prosecution of the Junta's crimes. He did not run for reelection, promoting instead the candidacy of his wife, senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was Argentine general election, 2007, elected in 2007 and subsequently Argentine general election, 2011, reelected in 2011. Fernández de Kirchner's administration established positive foreign relations with countries with questionable human rights records, including Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba, while at the same time relations with the United States and United Kingdom became increasingly strained. By 2015, the Argentine GDP grew by 2.7% and real incomes had risen over 50% since the post-Menem era. Despite these economic gains and increased renewable energy production and subsidies, the overall economy had been sluggish since 2011.
On 22 November 2015, after a tie in the first round of Argentine general election, 2015, presidential elections on 25 October, Juntos por el Cambio, center-right coalition candidate Mauricio Macri won the first Ballotage in Argentina, ballotage in Argentina's history, beating Front for Victory candidate Daniel Scioli and becoming president-elect. Macri was the first democratically elected non-Justicialist Party, peronist president since 1916 that managed to complete his term in office without being overthrown. He took office on 10 December 2015 and inherited an economy with a high inflation rate and in a poor shape. In April 2016, the Presidency of Mauricio Macri, Macri Government introduced neoliberal austerity measures intended to tackle inflation and overblown public deficits. Under Macri's administration, economic recovery remained elusive with GDP shrinking 3.4%, inflation totaling 240%, billions of US dollars issued in sovereign debt, and mass poverty increasing by the end of his term. He ran for re-election in 2019 but lost by nearly eight percentage points to Alberto Fernández, the Justicialist Party candidate.
President Alberto Fernández and Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner took office in December 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina, COVID-19 pandemic hit Argentina and among accusations of corruption, bribery and The Route of the K-Money, misuse of public funds during Nestor and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's presidencies. On 14 November 2021, the center-left coalition of Argentina's ruling Peronist party, Frente de Todos (Front for Everyone), lost its majority in Congress, for the first time in almost 40 years, in midterm 2021 Argentine legislative election, legislative elections. The election victory of the center-right coalition, Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change), meant a tough final two years in office for President Alberto Fernandez. Losing control of the Senate made it difficult for him to make key appointments, including to the judiciary. It also forced him to negotiate with the opposition every initiative he sends to the legislature.
Geography
With a mainland surface area of , Argentina is located in Southern Cone, southern South America, sharing land borders with Chile across the Andes to the west; Bolivia and Paraguay to the north; Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east; and the Drake Passage
The Drake Passage (referred to as Mar de Hoces Hoces Sea"in Spanish-speaking countries) is the body of water between South America's Cape Horn, Chile and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. It connects the southwestern part of the Atla ...
to the south; for an overall land border length of . Its coastal border over the Río de la Plata and South Atlantic Ocean is long.
Argentina's highest point is Aconcagua in the Mendoza province ( above sea level), also the highest point in the Southern Hemisphere, Southern and Western Hemispheres. The lowest point is Laguna del Carbón in the ''San Julián Great Depression'' Santa Cruz province, Argentina, Santa Cruz province ( below sea level, also the lowest point in the Southern and Western Hemispheres, and the seventh lowest point on Earth)
The northernmost point is at the confluence of the Río Grande de San Juan, Grande de San Juan and Mojinete rivers in Jujuy province; the southernmost is Cape San Pío in Tierra del Fuego province, Argentina, Tierra del Fuego province; the easternmost is northeast of Bernardo de Irigoyen, Misiones and the westernmost is within Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz province. The maximum north–south distance is , while the maximum east–west one is .
Some of the major rivers are the Paraná River, Paraná, Uruguay River, Uruguay—which join to form the Río de la Plata, Paraguay River, Paraguay, Salado River, Argentina, Salado, Río Negro River, Argentina, Negro, Santa Cruz River, Argentina, Santa Cruz, Pilcomayo River, Pilcomayo, Bermejo River, Bermejo and Colorado River, Argentina, Colorado. These rivers are discharged into the Argentine Sea, the shallow area of the Atlantic Ocean over the Argentine Shelf, an unusually wide continental platform. Its waters are influenced by two major ocean currents: the warm Brazil Current and the cold Falklands Current.
Biodiversity and environment
Argentina is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world hosting one of the greatest ecosystem varieties in the world: 15 continental zones, 2 marine zones, and the Antarctic region are all represented in its territory. This huge ecosystem variety has led to a biological diversity that is among the world's largest: 9,372 cataloged vascular plant species (ranked 24th); 1,038 cataloged bird species (ranked 14th); 375 cataloged mammal species (ranked 12th); 338 cataloged reptile, reptilian species (ranked 16th); and 162 cataloged amphibian species (ranked 19th).
The original pampa had virtually no trees; some imported species like the Platanus occidentalis, American sycamore or eucalyptus are present along roads or in towns and country estates (''estancias''). The only tree-like plant native to the pampa is the evergreen Ombú. The surface soils of the pampa are a deep black color, primarily mollisols, known commonly as ''humus''. This makes the region one of the most agriculturally productive on Earth; however, this is also responsible for decimating much of the original ecosystem, to make way for commercial agriculture. The western pampas receive less rainfall, this ''dry pampa'' is a plain of short grasses or steppe.
The National Parks of Argentina make up a network of 35 national parks in Argentina. The parks cover a very varied set of terrains and biotopes, from Baritú National Park on the northern border with Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
to Tierra del Fuego National Park in the far south of the continent. The Administración de Parques Nacionales (National Parks Administration) is the agency that preserves and manages these national parks along with Natural monuments and National Reserves within the country. Argentina had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.21/10, ranking it 47th globally out of 172 countries.
Climate
In general, Argentina has four main climate types: warm, moderate, arid, and cold, all determined by the expanse across latitude, range in altitude, and relief features. Although the most populated areas are generally temperate climate, temperate, Argentina has an exceptional amount of climate diversity, ranging from subtropical in the north to Polar climate, polar in the far south. Consequently, there is a wide variety of biomes in the country, including subtropical rain forests, semi-arid and arid regions, temperate plains in the Pampas, and cold subantarctic in the south. The average annual precipitation ranges from in the driest parts of Patagonia to over in the westernmost parts of Patagonia and the northeastern parts of the country. Mean annual temperatures range from in the far south to in the north.
Major wind currents include the cool Pampero Winds blowing on the flat plains of Patagonia and the Pampas; following the cold front, warm currents blow from the north in middle and late winter, creating mild conditions.
The Sudestada usually moderates cold temperatures but brings very heavy rains, rough seas and coastal flooding. It is most common in late autumn and winter along the central coast and in the Río de la Plata estuary.
The Zonda wind, Zonda, a foehn wind, hot dry wind, affects Cuyo and the central Pampas. Squeezed of all moisture during the descent from the Andes, Zonda winds can blow for hours with gusts up to , fueling wildfires and causing damage; between June and November, when the Zonda blows, snowstorms and blizzard (''viento blanco'') conditions usually affect higher elevations.
Climate change in Argentina is predicted to have significant effects on the living conditions in Argentina. The climate of Argentina is changing with regards to precipitation patterns and temperatures. The highest increases in the precipitation (from the period 1960–2010) have occurred in the eastern parts of the country. The increase in precipitation has led to more variability in precipitation from year to year in the northern parts of the country, with a higher risk of prolonged droughts, disfavoring agriculture in these regions.
Politics
In the 20th century, Argentina experienced significant political turmoil and democratic reversals. Between 1930 and 1976, the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, armed forces overthrew six governments in Argentina; and the country alternated periods of democracy (1912–1930, 1946–1955, and 1973–1976) with periods of restricted democracy and military regime, military rule. Following a transition to democracy, transition that began in 1983, full-scale democracy in Argentina was reestablished. Argentina's democracy endured through the 1998–2002 Argentine great depression, 2001–02 crisis and to the present day; it is regarded as more robust than both its pre-1983 predecessors and other democracies in Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
.
Government
Argentina is a Federalism, federal constitutional republic and representative democracy. The government is regulated by a system of separation of powers, checks and balances defined by the Constitution of Argentina, the country's supreme legal document. The seat of government is the city of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
, as designated by Argentine National Congress, Congress. Suffrage is Universal suffrage, universal, Equal suffrage, equal, Secret ballot, secret and Compulsory voting, mandatory.
The federal government is composed of three branches:
The Legislature, Legislative branch consists of the bicameralism, bicameral Congress, made up of the Argentine Senate, Senate and the Argentine Chamber of Deputies, Chamber of Deputies. The Congress makes federal law, declaration of war, declares war, approves treaty, treaties and has the power of the purse and of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government. The Chamber of Deputies represents the people and has 257 voting members elected to a four-year term. Seats are apportioned among the provinces by population every tenth year. ten provinces have just five deputies while the Buenos Aires Province, being the most populous one, has 70. The Chamber of Senators represents the provinces, has 72 members elected at-large to six-year terms, with each province having three seats; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. At least one-third of the candidates presented by the parties must be women.
In the Executive (government), Executive branch, the President of Argentina, President is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto bill (law), legislative bills before they become law—subject to Congressional override—and appoints the Cabinet of Argentina, members of the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies. The President is elected direct vote, directly by the vote of the people, serves a four-year term and may be elected to office no more than twice in a row.
The Judiciary, Judicial branch includes the Supreme Court of Argentina, Supreme Court and lower Law of Argentina, federal courts interpret laws and judicial review, overturn those they find constitutionality, unconstitutional. The Judicial is independent of the Executive and the Legislative. The Supreme Court has seven members appointed by the President—subject to Senate approval—who serve for life. The lower courts' judges are proposed by the Council of Magistracy of the Nation, Council of Magistracy (a secretariat composed of representatives of judges, lawyers, researchers, the Executive and the Legislative), and appointed by the president on Senate approval.
Provinces
Argentina is a federation of twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city
Autonomous city is a type of autonomous administrative division.
Argentina
The 1994 amendment of the Constitution of Argentina granted Buenos Aires city, previously the federal district of Argentina, the status of autonomous city, to allow its ...
, Buenos Aires. Provinces are divided for administration purposes into Departments of Argentina, departments and Municipalities of Argentina, municipalities, except for Buenos Aires Province, which is divided into Partidos of Buenos Aires, partidos. The City of Buenos Aires is divided into Barrios and Communes of Buenos Aires, communes.
Provinces hold all the power that they chose not to delegate to the federal government; they must be representative republics and must not contradict the Constitution. Beyond this they are fully autonomous: they enact their own constitutions, freely organize their local governments, and own and manage their natural and financial resources. Some provinces have bicameral legislatures, while others have Unicameralism, unicameral ones.
During the War of Independence the main cities and their surrounding countrysides became provinces though the intervention of their cabildo (council), cabildos. The Anarchy of the Year XX completed this process, shaping the original thirteen provinces. Jujuy seceded from Salta Province, Salta in 1834, and the thirteen provinces became fourteen.
After seceding for a decade, Buenos Aires accepted the 1853 Constitution of Argentina in 1861, and was made a federal territory in 1880.
An 1862 law designated as national territory, national territories those under federal control but outside the frontiers of the provinces. In 1884 they served as bases for the establishment of the governorates of Misiones, Formosa, Chaco, La Pampa, Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego. The agreement about a frontier dispute with Chile in 1900 created the National Territory of Los Andes; its lands were incorporated into Jujuy, Salta and Catamarca Province, Catamarca in 1943.
La Pampa Province, La Pampa and Chaco became provinces in 1951. Misiones did so in 1953, and Formosa Province, Formosa, Neuquén Province, Neuquén, Río Negro Province, Río Negro, Chubut Province, Chubut and Santa Cruz, in 1955. The last national territory, Tierra del Fuego, became the Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur Province in 1990. It has three components, although two are nominal because they are not under Argentine sovereignty. The first is the Argentine part of Tierra del Fuego; the second is an area of Antarctica claimed by Argentina that overlaps with similar areas claimed by the UK and Chile; the third comprises the two disputed British Overseas Territories of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.
Foreign relations
Foreign policy is handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, which answers to the President of Argentina, President. The country is one of the G-15 and G-20 major economies of the world, and a founding member of the UN, World Bank Group, WBG, World Trade Organization, WTO and Organization of American States, OAS.
In 2012 United Nations Security Council election, 2012, Argentina was elected again to a two-year non-permanent position on the United Nations Security Council and is participating in major peacekeeping operations in United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, Haiti, United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, Cyprus, Western Sahara and the Middle East. Argentina is described as a middle power
In international relations, a middle power is a sovereign state that is not a great power nor a superpower, but still has large or moderate influence and international recognition.
The concept of the "middle power" dates back to the origins of ...
.[Cooper AF (1997]
Niche Diplomacy – Middle Powers after the Cold War
, ''palgrave''
A prominent Latin American and Southern Cone regional power
In international relations, since the late 20thcentury, the term "regional power" has been used for a sovereign state that exercises significant power within a given geographical region.Joachim Betz, Ian Taylor"The Rise of (New) Regional Pow ...
, Argentina co-founded Organization of Ibero-American States, OEI and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC.
It is also a founding member of the Mercosur
The Southern Common Market, commonly known by Spanish abbreviation Mercosur, and Portuguese Mercosul, is a South American trade bloc established by the Treaty of Asunción in 1991 and Protocol of Ouro Preto in 1994. Its full members are Argentina ...
block, having Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela as partners. Since 2002 the country has emphasized its key role in Latin American integration, and the block—which has some supranational legislative functions—is its first international priority.
Argentina claims in Argentine Antarctica, Antarctica, where it has the world's oldest Orcadas Base, continuous state presence, since 1904. This overlaps claims by Chilean Antarctic Territory, Chile and the British Antarctic Territory, United Kingdom, though all such claims fall under the provisions of the 1961 Antarctic Treaty, of which Argentina is a founding signatory and permanent consulting member, with the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat being based in Buenos Aires.
Argentina Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute, disputes sovereignty over the Falkland Islands ( es, Islas Malvinas, link=no), and South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands sovereignty dispute, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the United Kingdom as British Overseas Territories, Overseas Territories. Argentina is a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Argentina is a Major non-NATO ally since 1998 and an OECD candidate country since January 2022.
Armed forces
The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the Argentine Armed Forces, as part of a legal framework that imposes a strict separation between national defense and internal security systems: The Argentine defense industry, National Defense System, an exclusive responsibility of the federal government, coordinated by the Ministry of Defense (Argentina), Ministry of Defense, and comprising the Argentine Army, Army, the Argentine Navy, Navy and the Argentine Air Force, Air Force. Ruled and monitored by Congress through the Houses' Defense Committees, it is organized on the essential principle of legitimate self-defense: the repelling of any external military aggression in order to guarantee freedom of the people, national sovereignty, and territorial integrity. Its secondary missions include committing to multinational operations within the framework of the United Nations, participating in internal support missions, assisting friendly countries, and establishing a sub-regional defense system.
Military service is voluntary, with enlistment age between 18 and 24 years old and no conscription. Argentina's defense has historically been one of the best equipped in the region, even managing Argentine defense industry, its own weapon research facilities, shipyards, ordnance, tank and plane factories. However, real military expenditures declined steadily after the defeat in the Falklands War, Falklands/Malvinas War and the defense budget in 2011 was only about 0.74% of GDP, a historical minimum, below the Latin American average. Within the defence budget itself funding for training and even basic maintenance has been significantly cut, a factor contributing to the Disappearance of ARA San Juan, accidental loss of the Argentine submarine San Juan in 2017. With the United Kingdom also actively acting to restrict even modest Argentinian military modernization efforts, the result has been a steady erosion of Argentine military capabilities, with some arguing that Argentina had, by the end of the 2010s, ceased to be a capable military power.
The Argentine Interior Security System, Interior Security System, jointly administered by the federal and subscribing provincial governments. At the federal level it is coordinated by the Interior, Ministry of Defense (Argentina), Security and Justice ministries, and monitored by Congress. It is enforced by the Argentine Federal Police, Federal Police; the Argentine Naval Prefecture, Prefecture, which fulfills coast guard duties; the Argentine National Gendarmerie, Gendarmerie, which serves border guard tasks; and the Airport Security Police (Argentina), Airport Security Police. At the provincial level it is coordinated by the respective internal security ministries and enforced by local police agencies.
Argentina was the only South American country to send warships and cargo planes in 1991 to the Gulf War under United Nations, UN mandate and has remained involved in peacekeeping efforts in multiple locations like UNPROFOR in Croatia/Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia, Gulf of Fonseca, United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, UNFICYP in Cyprus (where among Army and Marines troops the Air Force provided the UN Air contingent since 1994) and MINUSTAH in Haiti. Argentina is the only Latin American country to maintain troops in Kosovo during SFOR (and later EUFOR) operations where Combat engineering, combat engineers of the Argentine Armed Forces are embedded in an Italian Army, Italian brigade.
In 2007, an Argentine contingent including helicopters, boats and water purification plants was sent to help Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
against their worst floods in decades. In 2010 the Armed Forces were also involved in Humanitarian response by national governments to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Haiti and Humanitarian response to the 2010 Chile earthquake, Chile humanitarian responses after their respective earthquakes.
Economy
Benefiting from rich natural resources, a highly literate population, a diversified industrial base, and an export-oriented agricultural sector, the economy of Argentina is Latin America's third-largest, and the second largest in South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
. It has a List of countries by Human Development Index, "very high" rating on the Human Development Index and a relatively List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita, high GDP per capita, with a considerable internal market size and a growing share of the high-tech sector.
Access to biocapacity in Argentina is much higher than world average. In 2016, Argentina had 6.8 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much more than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Argentina used 3.4 global hectares of biocapacity per person – their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use half as much biocapacity as Argentina contains. As a result, Argentina is running a biocapacity reserve. A emerging economy, middle emerging economy and one of the world's top developing nations, is a member of the G-20 major economies.
Historically, however, its economic performance has been very uneven, with high economic growth alternating with severe recessions, income maldistribution and—in the recent decades—increasing poverty. Early in the 20th century Argentina achieved development, and became the world's seventh richest country. Although managing to keep a place among the top fifteen economies until mid-century, it suffered a long and steady decline, but it is still a high income country.
High inflation—a weakness of the Argentine economy for decades—has become a trouble once again, with an annual rate of 24.8% in 2017. To deter it and support the peso, the government imposed foreign currency control. Income distribution, having improved since 2002, is classified as "medium", although it is still considerably unequal.
Argentina ranks 85th out of 180 countries in the Transparency International's 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index, an improvement of 22 positions over its 2014 rankings. Argentina settled its long-standing debt default crisis in 2016 with the so-called vulture funds after the election of Mauricio Macri, allowing Argentina to enter capital markets for the first time in a decade. The government of Argentina defaulted on 22 May 2020 by failing to pay a $500 million due date to its creditors. Negotiations for the restructuring of $66 billion of its debt continue.
Agriculture
Argentina is the largest producer in the world of yerba mate (due to the large domestic consumption of Mate (drink), mate), one of the 5 largest producers in the world of soybeans, maize, sunflower seed, lemon and pear, one of the 10 largest producers in the world of barley, grape, artichoke, tobacco and cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...
, and one of the 15 largest producers in the world of wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
, sugarcane, sorghum and grapefruit. Argentina has been a major producer of wheat since before 1900. However, with the worldwide rise in the importance of soy, it has become the dominant crop in the country. Currently, only Brazil and USA produce more soy than Argentina, and only USA, China and Brazil produce more maize. It's the largest producer in South America of wheat, sunflower seed, barley, lemon and pear. In wine, Argentina is usually among the 10 largest producers in the world. In 2018 it was in 5th place.
Argentina is also a traditional meat exporter, having been, in 2019, the 4th world producer of beef, with a production of 3 million tons (only behind USA, Brazil and China), the 4th world producer of honey, and the 10th world producer of wool, in addition to other relevant productions.
Industry
The World Bank lists the top producing countries each year, based on the total value of production. According to the 2019 list, Argentina has the 31st most valuable industry in the world (U$57.7 billion). This year, the country was the 31st world producer of steel, the 28th producer of Automotive industry, vehicles, the 22nd world producer of beer, the 4th world producer of soybean oil and the 3rd world producer of sunflower oil, among other products.
The mining industry of Argentina is not as relevant as that of other countries. It stands out for being the 4th largest producer of lithium, 9th of silver and 17th of gold worldwide (2019 data). The country stands out in the production of natural gas, being the largest producer in South America and the 18th largest in the world, and has an average annual production close to 500 thousand barrels/day of petroleum, even with the under-utilization of the Vaca Muerta field, due to the country's technical and financial inability to extract these resources.
manufacturing accounted for 20.3% of GDP—the largest sector in the nation's economy. Well-integrated into Argentine agriculture, half of the industrial exports have rural origin. With a 6.5% production growth rate , the diversified manufacturing sector rests on a steadily growing network of industrial parks (314 ) the leading sectors by volume were: food processing, beverages and tobacco products; motor vehicles and auto parts; textiles and leather; petroleum refineries, refinery products and biodiesel; chemicals and pharmaceuticals; steel, aluminum and iron; industrial and farm machinery; home appliances and furniture; plastics and tires; glass and cement; and recording and print media. In addition, Argentina has since long been one of the top five wine-producing countries in the world. However, it has also been classified as one of the 74 countries where instances of child labour and forced labour have been observed and mentioned in a 2014 report published by the Bureau of International Labor Affairs. The ILAB's ''List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor'' shows that many of the goods produced by child labour or forced labour comes from the Agriculture in Argentina, agricultural sector.
Córdoba is Argentina's major industrial centre, hosting metalworking, motor vehicle and auto parts manufactures. Next in importance are the Greater Buenos Aires area (food processing, metallurgy, motor vehicles and auto parts, chemicals and petrochemicals, consumer durables, textiles and printing); Rosario (food processing, metallurgy, farm machinery, oil refining, chemicals, and tanning); San Miguel de Tucumán (sugar refining); San Lorenzo, Santa Fe, San Lorenzo (chemicals and pharmaceuticals); San Nicolás de los Arroyos (steel milling and metallurgy); and Ushuaia and Bahía Blanca (oil refining).
Other manufacturing enterprises are located in the provinces of Santa Fe Province, Santa Fe (zinc and copper smelting, and flour milling); Mendoza and Neuquén (wineries and fruit processing); Chaco (textiles and sawmills); and Santa Cruz, Salta and Chubut (oil refining). The electric output of Argentina totaled over per thousand USD.
Tourism
The country had 5.57 million visitors in 2013, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the top destination in South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
, and second in Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
after Mexico. Revenues from international tourists reached billion in 2013, down from billion in 2012. The country's capital city, Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
, is the most visited city in South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
. There are 30 National Parks of Argentina including many World Heritage Sites in Argentina, World Heritage Sites.
Transports
Buenos Aires, all provincial capitals except Ushuaia, and all medium-sized towns were interconnected by of paved roads, out of a total road network of . In 2021, the country had about of Dual carriageway, duplicated highways, most leaving the capital Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
, linking it with cities like Rosario, Santa Fe, Rosario and Córdoba (Argentina), Córdoba, Santa Fe (Argentina), Santa Fe, Mar del Plata and Paso de los Libres (in border with Brazil), there are also duplicated highways leaving from Mendoza towards the capital, and between Córdoba and Santa Fé, among other locations. Nevertheless, this road infrastructure is still inadequate and cannot handle the sharply growing demand caused by deterioration of the railway system.
Argentina has the largest Rail transport in Argentina, railway system in Latin America, with of operating lines , out of a full network of almost . This system links all 23 provinces plus Buenos Aires City, and connects with all neighbouring countries. There are four incompatible Track gauge, gauges in use; this forces virtually all interregional freight traffic to pass through Buenos Aires. The system has been in decline since the 1940s: regularly running up large budgetary deficits, by 1991 it was transporting 1,400 times less goods than it did in 1973. However, in recent years the system has experienced a Rail transport in Argentina#Recent developments and moves towards re-nationalisation, greater degree of investment from the state, in both commuter rail lines and long-distance lines, renewing rolling stock and infrastructure. In April 2015, by overwhelming majority the Argentine Senate passed a law which re-created Ferrocarriles Argentinos (2015), effectively re-nationalising the country's railways, a move which saw support from all major political parties on both sides of the political spectrum.
there were about of waterways, mostly comprising the La Plata, Paraná, Paraguay and Uruguay rivers, with Buenos Aires, Zárate, Buenos Aires, Zárate, Campana, Buenos Aires, Campana, Rosario, San Lorenzo, Santa Fe, Barranqueras and San Nicolas de los Arroyos as the main fluvial ports.
Some of the largest sea ports are La Plata–Ensenada, Buenos Aires, Ensenada, Bahía Blanca, Mar del Plata, Quequén–Necochea, Comodoro Rivadavia, Puerto Deseado, Puerto Madryn, Ushuaia and San Antonio Oeste.
Buenos Aires has historically been the most important port; however since the 1990s the Up-River port region has become dominant: stretching along of the Paraná river shore in Santa Fe province, it includes 17 ports and accounted for 50% of all exports.
there were 161 airports with paved runways out of more than a thousand. The Ezeiza International Airport, about from downtown Buenos Aires, is the largest in the country, followed by Cataratas del Iguazú International Airport, Cataratas del Iguazú in Misiones, and El Plumerillo International Airport, El Plumerillo in Mendoza. Aeroparque, in the city of Buenos Aires, is the most important domestic airport.
Energy
In 2020, more than 60% of Argentina's electricity came from non-renewable sources such as natural gas, oil and coal. 27% came from hydropower, 7.3% from wind and solar energy and 4.4% from nuclear energy. At the end of 2021 Argentina was the 21st country in the world in terms of installed hydroelectric power (11.3 GW), the 26th country in the world in terms of installed wind energy (3.2 GW) and the 43rd country in the world in terms of installed solar energy (1.0 GW).
The wind potential of the Patagonia region is considered gigantic, with estimates that the area could provide enough electricity to sustain the consumption of a country like Brazil alone. However, Argentina has infrastructural deficiencies to carry out the transmission of electricity from uninhabited areas with a lot of wind to the great centers of the country.
In 1974 it was the first country in Latin America to put in-line a commercial nuclear power plant, Atucha I Nuclear Power Plant, Atucha I. Although the Argentine built parts for that station amounted to 10% of the total, the nuclear fuel it uses are since entirely built in the country. Later nuclear power stations employed a higher percentage of Argentine built components; Embalse Nuclear Power Station, Embalse, finished in 1983, a 30% and the 2011 Atucha II Nuclear Power Plant, Atucha II reactor a 40%.
Science and technology
Argentines have received three Nobel Prizes in the Sciences. Bernardo Houssay, the first Latin American recipient, discovered the role of pituitary gland, pituitary hormones in regulating glucose in animals, and shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947. Luis Leloir discovered how organisms store energy converting glucose into glycogen and the compounds which are fundamental in metabolism, metabolizing carbohydrates, receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1970. César Milstein did extensive research in antibody, antibodies, sharing the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984. Argentine research has led to treatments for heart diseases and several forms of cancer. Domingo Liotta designed and developed the first artificial heart that was successfully implanted in a human being in 1969. René Favaloro developed the techniques and performed the world's first Coronary artery bypass surgery, coronary bypass surgery.
Argentina's nuclear programme has been highly successful. In 1957 Argentina was the first country in Latin America to design and build a research reactor with homegrown technology, the RA-1 Enrico Fermi. This reliance in the development of own nuclear related technologies, instead of buying them abroad, was a constant of Argentina's nuclear programme conducted by the civilian National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA). Nuclear facilities with Argentine technology have been built in Peru, Algeria, Australia and Egypt. In 1983, the country admitted having the capability of producing weapon-grade uranium, a major step needed to assemble nuclear weapons; since then, however, Argentina has pledged to use nuclear power only for peaceful purposes. As a member of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Argentina has been a strong voice in support of nuclear non-proliferation efforts and is highly committed to global nuclear security.
Despite its modest budget and numerous setbacks, academics and the sciences in Argentina have enjoyed an international respect since the turn of the 1900s, when Luis Agote devised the first safe and effective means of blood transfusion as well as René Favaloro, who was a pioneer in the improvement of the coronary artery bypass surgery. Argentine scientists are still on the cutting edge in fields such as nanotechnology, physics, computer sciences, molecular biology, oncology, ecology and cardiology. Juan Maldacena, an Argentine-American scientist, is a leading figure in string theory.
Space research has also become increasingly active in Argentina. Argentine built satellites include LUSAT-1 (1990), Víctor-1 (1996), PEHUENSAT-1 (2007), and those developed by CONAE, the Argentine space agency, of the SAC series. Argentina has its own satellite programme, nuclear power station designs (4th generation) and public nuclear energy company INVAP, which provides several countries with nuclear reactors.[Science and Education in Argentina]
argentina.ar Established in 1991, the CONAE has since launched two satellites successfully and, in June 2009, secured an agreement with the European Space Agency for the installation of a 35-m diameter antenna and other mission support facilities at the Pierre Auger Observatory, the world's foremost cosmic ray observatory. The facility will contribute to numerous ESA space probes, as well as CONAE's own, domestic research projects. Chosen from 20 potential sites and one of only three such ESA installations in the world, the new antenna will create a triangulation which will allow the ESA to ensure mission coverage around the clock Argentina was ranked 73rd in the Global Innovation Index in 2021.
Demographics
The INDEC, 2010 census counted 40,117,096 inhabitants, up from 36,260,130 in 2001. Argentina ranks third in South America in total population, fourth in Latin America and 33rd globally. Its population density of 15 persons per square kilometer of land area is well below the world average of 50 persons. The population growth rate in 2010 was an estimated 1.03% annually, with a birth rate of 17.7 live births per 1,000 inhabitants and a mortality rate of 7.4 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants. Since 2010, the crude net migration rate has ranged from below zero to up to four immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants per year.
Argentina is in the midst of a demographic transition to an older and slower-growing population. The proportion of people under 15 is 25.6%, a little below the world average of 28%, and the proportion of people 65 and older is relatively high at 10.8%. In Latin America this is second only to Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
and well above the world average, which is currently 7%. Has a comparatively low infant mortality rate. Its birth rate of 2.3 children per woman is considerably below the high of 7.0 children born per woman in 1895, though still nearly twice as high as in Spain or Italy, which are culturally and demographically similar. The median age is 31.9 years and life expectancy at birth is 77.14 years.
In 2010, Argentina became the first country in Latin America, the second in the Americas, and the tenth worldwide to legalize same-sex marriage.
Ethnography
Argentina is considered a country of immigrants. Argentines usually refer to the country as a ''crisol de razas'' (crucible of races, or melting pot). A 2010 study conducted on 218 individuals by the Argentine geneticist Daniel Corach established that the genetic map of Argentina is composed of 79% from different European ethnicities (mainly Italian and Spanish), 18% of different indigenous ethnicities, and 4.3% of African ethnic groups; 63.6% of the tested group had at least one ancestor who was Indigenous peoples in Argentina, Indigenous.
In colonial times, the ethnic composition of Argentina was the result of the interaction of the pre-Columbian indigenous population with a colonizing population of Spanish origin and with sub-Saharan African slaves. Before the middle 19th century, the ethnic make up of Argentina was very similar to that of other countries of Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
.
Between 1857 and 1950 Argentina was the country with the second biggest immigration wave in the world, at 6.6 million, second only to the United States in the numbers of immigrants received (27 million) and ahead of other areas of new settlement like Canada, Brazil and Australia. However, mass European immigration did not have the same impact in the whole country. According to the 1914 national census, 30% of Argentina's population was foreign-born, including 50% of the people in the city of Buenos Aires, but foreigners were only 2% in the provinces of Catamarca Province, Catamarca and La Rioja Province, Argentina, La Rioja (North West region).
Strikingly, at those times, the national population doubled every two decades. This belief is endured in the popular saying ''"los argentinos descienden de los barcos"'' (Argentines descend from the ships). Therefore, most Argentines are descended from the 19th- and 20th-century immigrants of the great European immigration wave to Argentina (1850–1955), with a great majority of these immigrants coming from diverse European countries, particularly Italy and Spain. The majority of Argentines descend from multiple European ethnic groups, primarily of Italian people, Italian and Spanish people, Spanish descent, with over 25 million Argentines (almost 60% of the population) having some partial Italian origins.
Argentina is also home to a notable Asian Argentine, Asian population, the majority of whom are descended from either West Asians (namely Lebanese people, Lebanese and Syrians) or East Asians (such as the Chinese, Korean people, Koreans, and the Japanese people, Japanese). The latter of whom number at around 180,000 individuals. The total number of Arab Argentines (most of whom are of Lebanese or Syrian origin) is estimated to be 1.3 to 3.5 million. Many immigrated from various Asian countries to Argentina during the 19th century (especially during the latter half of the century) and the first half of the 20th century. Most Arab Argentines are Christians belonging to the Catholic Church (the Latin Rite church and Eastern Rite churches), and Eastern Orthodox churches. A minority are Muslims.
From the 1970s, immigration has mostly been coming from Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
, Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
and Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal
, national_motto = "Fi ...
, with smaller numbers from the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Romania. The Argentine government estimates that 750,000 inhabitants lack official documents and has launched a program to encourage illegal immigrants to declare their status in return for two-year residence visas—so far over 670,000 applications have been processed under the program.
Languages
The ''de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' official language is Spanish language, Spanish, spoken by almost all Argentines.
The country is the largest Hispanophone, Spanish-speaking society that universally employs ''voseo'', the use of the pronoun ''vos'' instead of ''tú'' ("you"), which imposes the use of alternative verb forms as well.
Owing to the extensive Argentine geography, Spanish has a strong variation among regions, although the prevalent dialect is ''Rioplatense Spanish, Rioplatense'', primarily spoken in the Pampean and Patagonian regions and accented similarly to the Neapolitan language. Italian and other European immigrants influenced ''Lunfardo''—the regional slang—permeating the vernacular vocabulary of other Latin American countries as well.
There are several second-languages in widespread use among the Argentine population: English ( taught since elementary school; 42.3% of Argentines claim to speak it, with 15.4% of them claiming to have a high level of language comprehension.); Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
(by 1.5 million people); Arabic language, Arabic (specially its Levantine Arabic, Northern Levantine dialect, by one million people); Standard German (by 200,000 people); Guarani language, Guaraní (by 200,000 people, mostly in Corrientes and Misiones); Catalan language, Catalan (by 174,000 people); Quechua language, Quechua (by 65,000 people, mostly in the Northwest); Wichí languages, Wichí (by 53,700 people, mainly in Chaco where, along with Kom language (South America), Kom and Moqoit language, Moqoit, it is official ''de jure''); Vlax Romani language, Vlax Romani (by 52,000 people); Albanian language, Albanian (by Albanians in South America, 40,000 people); Japanese language, Japanese (by 32,000 people); Aymara language, Aymara (by 30,000 people, mostly in the Northwest); Ukrainian language, Ukrainian (by 27,000 people); Welsh language, Welsh (5,000 people in Patagonia); and some districts also have incorporated it as an educational language.
Religion
Christianity is the largest religion in Argentina. The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Although it enforces neither an official nor a state faith, it gives Roman Catholicism a preferential status.
According to a 2008 CONICET poll, Argentines were 76.5% Catholic, 11.3% Agnostics and Atheists, 9% Evangelicalism, Evangelical Protestants, 1.2% Jehovah's Witnesses, and 0.9% Mormons, while 1.2% followed other religions, including Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. These figures appear to have changed quite significantly in recent years: data recorded in 2017 indicated that Catholics made up 66% of the population, indicating a drop of 10.5% in nine years, and the nonreligious in the country standing at 21% of the population, indicating an almost doubling over the same period.
The country is home to both one of the Islam in Argentina, largest Muslim and Jewish Argentine, largest Jewish communities in Latin America, the latter being the seventh most populous in the world. Argentina is a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Argentines show high individualization and de-institutionalization of religious beliefs; 23.8% claim to always attend religious services; 49.1% seldom do and 26.8% never do.
On 13 March 2013, Argentine Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Cardinal (Catholicism), Cardinal Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, was Papal conclave, 2013, elected Pope, Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church. He took the name "St. Francis of Assisi, Francis", and he became the first Pope from either the Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
or from the Southern Hemisphere; he is the first Pope born outside of Europe since the Papal conclave, election of Pope Gregory III (who was Syrian) in 741.
Health
Health care is provided through a combination of employer and labour union-sponsored plans (''Obras Sociales''), government insurance plans, public hospitals and clinics and through private health insurance plans. Health care cooperatives number over 300 (of which 200 are related to Trade union, labour unions) and provide health care for half the population; the national INSSJP (popularly known as PAMI) covers nearly all of the five million senior citizens.
There are more than 153,000 hospital beds, 121,000 physicians and 37,000 dentists (ratios comparable to developed country, developed nations).[Estadisticas Vitales – Informacionn Basica Año2008]
. Ministry of Health (December 2009)[ ] The relatively high access to medical care has historically resulted in mortality patterns and trends similar to developed nations': from 1953 to 2005, deaths from cardiovascular disease increased from 20% to 23% of the total, those from tumors from 14% to 20%, respiratory problems from 7% to 14%, digestive system, digestive maladies (non-infectious) from 7% to 11%, strokes a steady 7%, injuries, 6%, and infection, infectious diseases, 4%. Causes related to senility led to many of the rest. Infant deaths have fallen from 19% of all deaths in 1953 to 3% in 2005.[''UN Demographic Yearbook. 1957.'']
The availability of health care has also reduced infant mortality from 70 per 1000 live births in 1948[''UN Demographic Yearbook. Historical Statistics. 1997''.] to 12.1 in 2009 and raised life expectancy at birth from 60 years to 76. Though these figures compare favorably with global averages, they fall short of levels in developed nations and in 2006, Argentina ranked fourth in Latin America.
Education
The Argentine education system consists of four levels. An initial level for children between 45 days to 5 years old, with the last two years being compulsory. An elementary or lower school mandatory level lasting 6 or 7 years. the literacy rate was 98.07%. A secondary or high school mandatory level lasting 5 or 6 years. 38.5% of people over age 20 had completed secondary school. A Higher education, higher level, divided in tertiary, university and post-graduate sub-levels. there were 47 List of Argentine universities, national public universities across the country, as well as 46 private ones.
7.1% of people over age 20 had graduated from university. The public universities of University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, La Plata, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Rosario, and the National Technological University are some of the most important. The Argentine state guarantees universal, secular and free-of-charge public education for all levels. Responsibility for educational supervision is organized at the federal and individual provincial states. In the last decades the role of the private sector has grown across all educational stages.
Urbanization
Argentina is highly urbanized, with 92% of its population living in cities: the ten largest metropolitan areas account for half of the population.
About 3 million people live in the city of Buenos Aires, and including the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area it totals around 13 million, making it one of the largest urban areas in the world. The metropolitan areas of Córdoba and Rosario have around 1.3 million inhabitants each. Mendoza, San Miguel de Tucumán, La Plata, Mar del Plata, Salta and Santa Fe have at least half a million people each.
The population is unequally distributed: about 60% live in the Pampas region (21% of the total area), including 15 million people in Buenos Aires province. The provinces of Córdoba and Santa Fe, and the city of Buenos Aires have 3 million each. Seven other provinces have over one million people each: Mendoza, Tucumán, Entre Ríos, Salta, Chaco, Corrientes and Misiones. With , Tucumán is the only Argentine province more densely populated than the world average; by contrast, the southern province of Santa Cruz has around .
Culture
Argentina is a multiculturalism, multicultural country with significant European influences. Modern Argentine culture has been largely influenced by Italian people, Italian, Spanish people, Spanish and other European immigration from France, Russia, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, among others. Its cities are largely characterized by both the prevalence of people of European descent, and of conscious imitation of American and European styles in fashion, architecture and design.[Luongo, Michael. ''Frommer's Argentina''. Wiley Publishing, 2007.] Museums, cinemas, and galleries are abundant in all the large urban centres, as well as traditional establishments such as literary bars, or bars offering live music of a variety of genres although there are lesser elements of Amerindian and African culture, African influences, particularly in the fields of music and art. The other big influence is the gauchos and their traditional country lifestyle of self-reliance. Finally, indigenous American traditions have been absorbed into the general cultural milieu.
Argentine writer Ernesto Sabato has reflected on the nature of the culture of Argentina as follows:
Literature
Although Argentina's rich literary history began around 1550, it reached full independence with Esteban Echeverría's ''El Matadero'', a Romantic literature, romantic landmark that played a significant role in the development of 19th century's Argentine narrative, split by the ideological divide between the popular, federalist epic of José Hernández (writer), José Hernández' ''Martín Fierro'' and the elitist and cultured discourse of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Sarmiento's masterpiece, ''Facundo''.
The Modernist literature, Modernist movement advanced into the 20th century including exponents such as Leopoldo Lugones and poet Alfonsina Storni; it was followed by Vanguardism, with Ricardo Güiraldes's ''Don Segundo Sombra'' as an important reference.
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina's most acclaimed writer and one of the foremost figures in the history of literature, found new ways of looking at the modern world in metaphor and philosophical debate and his influence has extended to authors all over the globe. Short stories such as ''Ficciones'' and ''The Aleph (short story collection), The Aleph'' are among his most famous works. He was a friend and collaborator of Adolfo Bioy Casares, who wrote one of the most praised science fiction novels, ''The Invention of Morel''. Julio Cortázar, one of the leading members of the Latin American Boom and a major name in 20th century literature, influenced an entire generation of writers in the Americas and Europe.
A remarkable episode in the Argentine literature's history is the social and literarial dialectica between the so-called :es:Grupo Florida, Florida Group named this way because its members used to meet together at the :es: Confitería Richmond, Richmond Cafeteria at Florida street and published in the :es:Martín Fierro (Revista), Martin Fierro magazine, like Jorge Luis Borges, :es: Leopoldo Marechal, Leopoldo Marechal, :es:Antonio Berni, Antonio Berni (artist), among others, versus the :es:Grupo Boedo, Boedo Group of Roberto Arlt,
:es:Cesar Tiempo, Cesar Tiempo,
:es:Homero Manzi, Homero Manzi (tango composer), that used to meet at the
:es:Café El Japonés, Japanese Cafe and published their works with the :es: Editorial Claridad, Editorial Claridad, with both the cafe and the publisher located at the Boedo Avenue.
Other highly regarded Argentine writers, poets and essayists include Estanislao del Campo, Eugenio Cambaceres, Pedro Bonifacio Palacios, Hugo Wast, Benito Lynch, Enrique Banchs, Oliverio Girondo, Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, Victoria Ocampo, Leopoldo Marechal, Silvina Ocampo, Roberto Arlt, Eduardo Mallea, Manuel Mujica Láinez, Ernesto Sábato, Silvina Bullrich, Rodolfo Walsh, María Elena Walsh, Tomás Eloy Martínez, Manuel Puig, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Osvaldo Soriano.
Music
Tango, a ''Río de la Plata, Rioplatense'' musical genre with European and African influences, is one of Argentina's international cultural symbols.
The golden age of tango (1930 to mid-1950s) mirrored that of jazz and swing music, swing in the United States, featuring large orchestras like those of Osvaldo Pugliese, Aníbal Troilo, Francisco Canaro, Julio de Caro and Juan d'Arienzo.
After 1955, virtuoso Astor Piazzolla popularized ''Nuevo tango'', a subtler and more intellectual trend for the genre.
Tango enjoys worldwide popularity nowadays with groups like Gotan Project, Bajofondo and Tanghetto.
Argentina developed strong classical music and dance scenes that gave rise to renowned artists such as Alberto Ginastera, composer; Alberto Lysy, violinist; Martha Argerich and Eduardo Delgado, pianists; Daniel Barenboim, pianist and symphonic orchestra director; José Cura and Marcelo Álvarez, tenors; and to ballet dancers Jorge Donn, José Neglia, Norma Fontenla, ''Maximiliano Guerra'', Paloma Herrera, Marianela Núñez, Iñaki Urlezaga and Julio Bocca.
A national Argentine folk style emerged in the 1930s from dozens of regional musical genres and went to influence the entirety of Latin American music. Some of its interpreters, like Atahualpa Yupanqui and Mercedes Sosa, achieved worldwide acclaim. The romantic ballad genre included singers of international fame such as Sandro de América. Tenor saxophone, Tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri, Leandro "Gato" Barbieri and composer and big band conductor Lalo Schifrin are among the most internationally successful Argentine jazz musicians.
Argentine rock developed as a distinct musical style in the mid-1960s, when Buenos Aires and Rosario became cradles of aspiring musicians.
Founding bands like Los Gatos, Sui Generis, Almendra (band), Almendra and Manal were followed by Seru Giran, Los Abuelos de la Nada, Soda Stereo and Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota, with prominent artists including Gustavo Cerati, Litto Nebbia, Andrés Calamaro, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Charly García, Fito Páez and León Gieco.
A dance and a musical genre popular at the present is Cachengue a subgenre of Argentine cumbia and reggaeton spreading in popularity in nearby countries such as Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
, Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
, Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
, and Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
.
Theatre and cinema
Buenos Aires is one of the great theatre capitals of the world, with a scene of international caliber centered on Corrientes Avenue, "the street that never sleeps", sometimes referred to as an intellectual Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in Buenos Aires. Teatro Colón is a global landmark for opera and classical performances; its acoustics are considered among the world's top five.
The Argentine film industry has historically been one of the three most developed in Latin American cinema, along with those produced in Cinema of Mexico, Mexico and Cinema of Brazil, Brazil. Started in 1896; by the early 1930s it had already become Latin America's leading film producer, a place it kept until the early 1950s. The world's first list of animated feature films, animated feature films were made and released in Argentina, by cartoonist Quirino Cristiani, in 1917 and 1918.
Argentine films have achieved worldwide recognition: the country has won two Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, for ''The Official Story'' (1985) and ''The Secret in Their Eyes'' (2009). In addition, Argentine composers Luis Enrique Bacalov and Gustavo Santaolalla have been honored with Academy Award for Best Original Score, Academy Awards for Best Original Score, and Armando Bó (screenwriter), Armando Bó and Nicolás Giacobone shared in the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for 2014. Also, the French Argentine, Argentine French actress Bérénice Bejo received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2011 and won the César Award for Best Actress and won the Best Actress Award (Cannes Film Festival), Best Actress award in the Cannes Film Festival for her role in the film ''The Past (2013 film), The Past''. Argentina also has won seventeen Goya Award for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film, Goya Awards for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film, being by far the most awarded country in Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
with twenty-four nominations. Many other Argentine films also have been acclaimed by the international critique. about 100 full-length motion pictures were being created annually.
Visual arts and architecture
Some of the best-known Argentine painters are Cándido López and Florencio Molina Campos (Naïve art, Naïve style); Ernesto de la Cárcova and Eduardo Sívori (Realism (art), Realism); Fernando Fader (Impressionism); Pío Collivadino, Atilio Malinverno and Cesáreo Bernaldo de Quirós (Postimpressionism); Emilio Pettoruti (Cubism); Julio Barragán (Concretism (art), Concretism and Cubism) Antonio Berni (Neofigurativism); Roberto Aizenberg and Xul Solar (Surrealism); Gyula Košice (Constructivism (art), Constructivism); Eduardo Mac Entyre (Generative art); Luis Seoane, ''Carlos Torrallardona'', ''Luis Aquino'', ''Alfredo Gramajo Gutiérrez'' (Modernism); Lucio Fontana (Spatialism); Tomás Maldonado, Guillermo Kuitca (Abstract art); León Ferrari, Marta Minujín (Conceptual art); Ciruelo Cabral, Gustavo Cabral (Fantasy art), and Fabian Perez, Fabián Pérez (Neoemotionalism).
In 1946 Gyula Košice and others created The Madí Movement in Argentina, which then spread to Europe and United States, where it had a significant impact. Tomás Maldonado was one of the main theorists of the Ulm School of Design, Ulm Model of design education, still highly influential globally. Other Argentine artists of worldwide fame include Adolfo Bellocq, whose lithographs have been influential since the 1920s, and Benito Quinquela Martín, the quintessential port painter, inspired by the immigrant-bound La Boca neighbourhood. Internationally laureate sculptors Erminio Blotta, Lola Mora and Rogelio Yrurtia authored many of the classical evocative monuments of the Argentine cityscape.
The colonization brought the Spanish Baroque architecture, which can still be appreciated in its simpler ''Rioplatense'' style in the Indian Reductions, reduction of San Ignacio Miní, the Cathedral of Córdoba (Argentina), Cathedral of Córdoba, and the Cabildo of Luján. Italian and French influences increased at the beginning of the 19th century with strong Eclectic architecture, eclectic overtones that gave the local architecture a unique feeling.
Mass media
Print media industry is highly developed in Argentina, with more than two hundred newspapers. The major national ones include ''Clarín (Argentine newspaper), Clarín'' (centrist, Latin America's best-seller and the second most widely circulated in the Spanish-speaking world), ''La Nación (Buenos Aires), La Nación'' (centre-right, published since 1870), ''Página/12'' (leftist, founded in 1987), ''La Voz del Interior'' (centre, founded in 1904), and the ''Argentinisches Tageblatt'' (German weekly, liberal, published since 1878)
Argentina began History of radio, the world's first regular radio broadcasting on 27 August 1920, when Richard Wagner's ''Parsifal'' was aired by a team of medical students led by Enrique Telémaco Susini in Buenos Aires' Teatro Coliseo. there were 260 AM broadcasting, AM and 1150 FM broadcasting, FM registered radio stations in the country.
The Television in Argentina, Argentine television industry is large, diverse and popular across Latin America, with many productions and TV formats having been exported abroad. Since 1999 Argentines enjoy the highest availability of cable and satellite television in Latin America, totaling 87.4% of the country's households, a rate similar to those in the United States, Canada and Europe.
Argentina also had the highest coverage of networked telecommunications among Latin American powers: about 67% of its population had internet access and 137.2%, mobile phone subscriptions.
Cuisine
Besides many of the pasta, sausage and dessert dishes common to continental Europe, Argentines enjoy a wide variety of Indigenous and Criollo people, Criollo creations, including ''empanadas'' (a small stuffed pastry), ''locro'' (a mixture of corn, beans, meat, bacon, onion, and gourd), ''humita'' and ''mate (beverage), mate''.
The country has the highest consumption of red meat in the world, traditionally prepared as ''asado'', the Argentine barbecue. It is made with various types of meats, often including ''chorizo'', sweetbread, chitterlings, and blood sausage.
Common desserts include ''facturas'' (Viennese cuisine, Viennese-style pastry), cakes and pancakes filled with ''dulce de leche'' (a sort of milk caramel jam), ''alfajores'' (shortbread cookies sandwiched together with chocolate, ''dulce de leche'' or a fruit paste), and ''torta frita, tortas fritas'' (fried cakes)
Argentine wine, one of the world's finest, is an integral part of the local menu. Malbec, Torrontés, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Chardonnay are some of the most sought-after international varieties, varieties.
Sport
''Pato'' is the national sport, an ancient horseback game locally originated in the early 1600s and predecessor of horseball. The most popular sport is Association football, football. Along with Brazilian national football team, Brazil and French national football team, France, the Argentina national football team, men's national team is the only one to have won the most important international triplet: FIFA World Cup, World Cup, FIFA Confederations Cup, Confederations Cup, and the Football at the Summer Olympics, Olympic Gold Medal. It has also won 15 Copa América, Copas América, 7 Football at the Pan American Games, Pan American Gold Medals and many other trophies. Alfredo Di Stéfano, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi are among the best players in the game's history.
The country's Argentina women's national field hockey team, women's field hockey team ''Las Leonas'', is one of the world's most successful with four Field hockey at the Summer Olympics, Olympic medals, two Women's Hockey World Cup, World Cups, a FIH Hockey World League, World League and seven Hockey Champions Trophy, Champions Trophy. Luciana Aymar is recognized as the best female player in the history of the sport, being the only player to have received the FIH Player of the Year Awards, FIH Player of the Year Award eight times.
Basketball is a very popular sport. The Argentina national basketball team, men's national team is the only one in the FIBA Americas zone that has won the quintuplet crown: FIBA World Championship, World Championship, Basketball at the Summer Olympics, Olympic Gold Medal, FIBA Diamond Ball, Diamond Ball, FIBA Americas Championship, Americas Championship, and Basketball at the Pan American Games, Pan American Gold Medal. It has also conquered 13 South American Basketball Championship, South American Championships, and many other tournaments. Emanuel Ginóbili, Luis Scola, Andrés Nocioni, Fabricio Oberto, Pablo Prigioni, Carlos Delfino and Juan Ignacio Sánchez are a few of the country's most acclaimed players, all of them part of the National Basketball Association, NBA. Argentina hosted the Basketball World Cup in 1950 and 1990.
Rugby Union, Rugby is another popular sport in Argentina. the Argentina national rugby union team, men's national team, known as 'Los Pumas' has competed at the Rugby World Cup each time it has been held, achieving their highest ever result in 2007 Rugby World Cup, 2007 when they came third. Since 2012 Rugby Championship, 2012 the Los Pumas have competed against Australia national rugby union team, Australia, New Zealand national rugby union team, New Zealand & South Africa national rugby union team, South Africa in The Rugby Championship, the premier international Rugby competition in the Southern Hemisphere. Since 2009 the Argentina Jaguars, secondary men's national team known as the 'Jaguares' has competed against the USA Selects, US, Canada A national rugby union team, Canada, and Uruguay national rugby union team, Uruguay first teams in the Americas Rugby Championship, which Los Jaguares have won six out of eight times it has taken place.
Argentina has produced some of the most formidable champions for Boxing, including Carlos Monzón, the best middleweight in history; Pascual Pérez (boxer), Pascual Pérez, one of the most decorated flyweight boxers of all times; Horacio Accavallo, the former World Boxing Association, WBA and World Boxing Council, WBC world flyweight champion; Víctor Galíndez, record holder for consecutive world light heavyweight title defenses and Nicolino Locche, nicknamed "The Untouchable" for his masterful defense; they are all inductees into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Tennis has been quite popular among people of all ages. Guillermo Vilas is the greatest Latin American player of the History of tennis, Open Era, while Gabriela Sabatini is the most accomplished Argentine female player of all time—having reached number 3 in the WTA ranking, are both inductees into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Argentina has won the World Team Cup four times, in 1980, 2002, 2007 ARAG World Team Cup, 2007 and 2010 ARAG World Team Cup, 2010 and has reached the semifinals of the Davis Cup 7 times in the last 10 years, losing the finals against Russia in 2006 Davis Cup, 2006 and Spain in 2008 Davis Cup, 2008 and 2011 Davis Cup, 2011; the Argentine team also played the final in 1981 Davis Cup, 1981, where they lost against the United States. The national squad won the 2016 Davis Cup.
Argentina reigns undisputed in Polo, having won more international championships than any other country and been seldom beaten since the 1930s. The Campeonato Argentino Abierto de Polo, Argentine Polo Championship is the sport's most important international team trophy. The country is home to most of the world's top players, among them Adolfo Cambiaso, the best in Polo history.
Historically, Argentina has had a strong showing within Auto racing. Juan Manuel Fangio was five times Formula One world champion under four different teams, winning 102 of his 184 international races, and is widely ranked as the greatest driver of all time. Other distinguished racers were Oscar Alfredo Gálvez, Juan Gálvez (racing driver), Juan Gálvez, José Froilán González and Carlos Reutemann.
See also
* Index of Argentina-related articles
* Outline of Argentina
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External links
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National Institute of Tourism Promotion
Argentina
''The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency.
*
Argentina
at the Latin American Network Information Center
at the University of Colorado Boulder, University Libraries – University of Colorado Boulder
Key Development Forecasts for Argentina
at International Futures
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{{Authority control
Argentina,
1816 establishments in South America
Christian states
Countries in South America
Federal constitutional republics
Former Spanish colonies
G15 nations
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Member states of Mercosur
Member states of the United Nations
Southern Cone countries
Spanish-speaking countries and territories
States and territories established in 1816