In Spanish, the term (feminine: ''Porteña'') means "port city person". It is used to refer to residents of port cities such as

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 ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

;

El Puerto de Santa María EL, El or el may refer to: Religion * El (deity), a Semitic word for "God" People * EL (rapper) (born 1983), stage name of Elorm Adablah, a Ghanaian rapper and sound engineer * El DeBarge, music artist * El Franco Lee (1949–2016), American ...

, Spain;

Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...

, Chile;

Mazatlán Mazatlán () is a city in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The city serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding '' municipio'', known as the Mazatlán Municipality. It is located at on the Pacific coast, across from the southernmost tip ...

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

Acapulco Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has ...

and

Tampico Tampico is a city and port in the southeastern part of the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. It is located on the north bank of the Pánuco River, about inland from the Gulf of Mexico, and directly north of the state of Veracruz. Tampico is the fifth ...

, Mexico;

Puerto Cabello Puerto Cabello () is a city on the north coast of Venezuela. It is located in Carabobo State, about 210 km west of Caracas. As of 2011, the city had a population of around 182,400. The city is home to the largest and busiest port in the coun ...

, Venezuela;

Puerto Colombia Puerto Colombia is a coastal town and municipality in Atlántico Department, Colombia founded in the mid 1800s. Famous for its " Pier of Puerto Colombia", that at one time was the largest Pier in the world. Duties were later transferred to the l ...

, Colombia; Puerto Suárez in Bolivia;

Puerto Cortés Puerto Cortés, originally known as Puerto de Caballos, is a port city and municipality on the north Caribbean coast of Honduras, right on the Laguna de Alvarado, north of San Pedro Sula and east of Omoa, with a natural bay. The present city ...

, Honduras; Puntarenas, Costa Rica, and

Montevideo Montevideo () is the capital and largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . Montevideo is situated on the southern co ...

, Uruguay.

History

During the wave of European migration to Argentina peaking in the 1880s, the

Río de la Plata The Río de la Plata (, "river of silver"), also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean and fo ...

area became heavily populated with people of European descent, mainly Italian, Spanish and

French 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 Franc ...

. They called themselves ''Porteños'' to distinguish themselves from existing criollo (colonial Spanish) ancestry,

mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though thei ...

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 ...

and

mulatto (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese ...

es.

Today

Culture

Porteños have a unique culture, different from that of their initial European homelands. Notably,

equestrian sports Equestrian sports are sports that use horses as a main part of the sport. This usually takes the form of the rider being on the horse's back, or the horses pulling some sort of horse-drawn vehicle. General * 4-H * Equitation * Horse show *Icelan ...

are a huge part of Porteño life. Porteño are known to be some of the best

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small ha ...

players in the world, and have raised

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

s through fertile grasslands in the Pampas region. Each year, in November, the Palermo Open, the world's most prestigious Polo championship, takes place in the

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its ...

section of

. Also tracing to the inherent geographies of the Pampas, Porteño cuisine consists heavily of

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quantit ...

. For example, the national dish of Argentina is

asado ' () is the technique and the social event of having or attending a barbecue in various South American countries, especially Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay where it is also a traditional event. An ''asado'' usually consists of beef, por ...

Demographics

Since Porteño is not officially reportable on any

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...

, estimates differ regarding their population and geography. However, it is estimated that over 3 million Uruguayans identify as Porteño, making up over 90% of the country's population. While not the majority ethnicity in

, Porteños are prominent in the eastern province of

. Outside Buenos Aires City, they make up most of the population, and a significant Porteño diaspora exists in the City's Recoleta,

, and Belgrano neighborhoods.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Porteno Buenos Aires Spanish language Demonyms * * * *