Mar del Plata is a city on the coast of theAtlantic Ocean, inBuenos Aires Province,Argentina. It is the seat ofGeneral Pueyrredón district. Mar del Plata is the second largest city in Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" is short for "Mar del Río de la Plata," and means "sea of theRío de la Plata basin" or "adjoining sea to the (River) Plate region."[1] Mar del Plata is one of the major fishing ports and the biggest seasidebeach resort in Argentina.With a population of 682,605 as per the 2022census[INDEC], it is the5th largest city in Argentina.[2]
People on the second rambla ofPlaya Bristol (c.1920).The Mar del Plata Sud railway station (c.1910) closed in 1949 and was later damaged by fire. It underwent a major restoration in the 2010s, but the upper part that lost its decoration after the fire, remains unadorned.The Club Mar del Plata burned down in 1961, and was never rebuilt.From the 1950s to the 1970s there was a construction boom in the city.
Pre-Spanish era: The region was inhabited byGünuna Kena nomads (also known as northernTehuelches). They were later (after the 11th century) strongly influenced by theMapuche culture.
1577–1857: First European explorers.Sir Francis Drake made a reconnaissance of the coast and itssea lion colonies; DonJuan de Garay explored the area by land a few years later, in 1581. In 1742, during theWar of Jenkins' Ear, eight survivors ofHMS Wager, part ofAdmiral Anson expedition and led by midshipman Isaac Morris, lived through a ten-month ordeal before being decimated and captured by theTehuelches, who eventually handed them to the Spaniards. After holding the Englishmen as prisoners, they returned Morris and his surviving companions to London in 1746.[3] First colonization attempt byJesuit Order nearLaguna de los Padres ended in disaster (1751).
1857–1874: ThePortuguese entrepreneur José Coelho de Meirelles, taking advantage of the country's abundance of wild cattle, built a pier and a factory forsalted meat nearCabo Corrientes, but the business only lasted a few years.[4]
1874–1886:Patricio Peralta Ramos acquired the now abandoned factory along with the surrounding terrain, and founded the town on February 10, 1874.Basque rancher Pedro Luro bought a part of Peralta Ramos land for agricultural production. First docks also erected around this time.
1886–1911: The railway line fromBuenos Aires, built by theBuenos Aires Great Southern reached Mar del Plata in 1886; the first hotels started their activity. The upper-class people from Buenos Aires became the first tourists of the new born village. They also established a local government that reflected their conservative ideals. Build-up of a French style resort. On 19 July 1907, the provincial legislature approved a bill that declared Mar del Plata as a city.[5]
1911–1930: The residents, mostly newly arrived emigrants from Europe, demanded and obtained the control of the Municipality administration. The socialists were the mainstream political force in this period, carrying out social reforms and public investment. The main port was also built and inaugurated in 1916.
1930–1946: A military coup reinstated theConservative hegemony in politics through electoral fraud and corruption, but at local levels they were quite progressive, their policies viewed in some way as a continuity of the socialist trend. In 1932, the construction ofNational Route 2 was completed, which connected Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires.[6][7] Before this, a dirt road connected Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires using a different route, requiring almost two days to travel by car.[8] The seasideCasino complex opened in 1939, was designed by architectAlejandro Bustillo, dates from this period.
1946–1955: Birth of thePeronist movement. A coalition between socialists and radicals defeated this new party by a narrow margin in Mar del Plata, but by 1948 Peronism came to dominate the local administration. The massive tourism, triggered by thewelfare politics ofPerón and the surge of the middle class marked a huge growth in the city's economy.
1955–1970: After thefall of Perón, during which the city wasthe subject of a naval bombardment, thesocialists regained the upper hand in local politics; the city reached the peak in activities like construction business and building industry. There was massive emigration from other regions of Argentina.
1970–1989: Slight decline of tourism demand, counterbalanced by the increase of other industries such as fishing and machinery. General infrastructure renewal under the military rule. The centristRadical Civic Union becomes the main political force after thereturn of Democracy in 1983.
1989–2010: ThoughPeronism replaced the radicals in central government amid a national financial crisis, the latter party continued to rule in Mar del Plata. Some resurgence of mass tourism in the early '90s was followed by a deep social crisis in town, with an increase of poverty, jobless rates and emigration. By contrast, the first decade of the 21st century shows an amazingly quick recovery in all sectors of the ailing economy.
One of the beaches of Mar del Plata during summer tourism seasonTypical wooden fishing boats at the port of Mar del Plata, known asLanchas Amarillas
As part of the Argentine recreational coast,tourism is Mar del Plata's main economic activity, with over eight million tourists visiting the city in annually.[9] Mar del Plata has a sophisticated tourist infrastructure with numerous hotels, restaurants, casinos, theatres and other tourist attractions. Mar del Plata is also an important sports centre with a multi-purposeOlympic stylestadium (first used for the1978 World Cup and later upgraded for the1995 Pan American Games), five golf courses and many other facilities.
As an importantfishing port, industry concentrates on fish processing and at least two large shipyards.[10][11]
The area is also host to other light industry, such as textile, food manufacturing andpolymers.There is a well-developed packaging machines industry, its quality being recognized in international markets.[12] One of these companies was one of the pioneers in the automatic packaging oftea bags,[13] exporting its original machine-designs abroad. Another company also exports its products and has soldroyalties to other countries.[14]
During the mid-1980s, Mar del Plata saw the birth of electronics factories, focused mostly on the telecommunications field, with two of them, Nexuscom and DelSat, succeeding in the international market.[15][16] By the 2010s, a localtechnology company, PCBOX, was manufacturing and developingpersonal computers,tablet computers,smartphones andaction-cams.[17][18]
Also during the decade of 2010, the development of thesoftware industry resulted in the formation of 92 companies and 440 microbusiness.[19] One of these companies, Making Sense, opened offices atSan Antonio,Austin andBoston, in the United States.[20] Along with the American COPsync, Inc, the company developed in 2013 the software for VidTac, an in-car video system for law enforcement,[21] and the internetlanding page application Lander, bought by theSilicon Valley company QuestionPro in 2016.[22]
Since the 2000s, a local company builds and developsoil industry equipment, with customers in the United States, Russia,Oman andEgypt.[23][24]
Located southwest of the city there arequartzite quarries. The stone is traditionally used in construction. There is a huge area offarms in the rural areas surrounding the city, specialized mostly in the cultivation ofvegetables. In 2012, Mar del Plata became a wine-producing area, when a wine company fromMendoza province produced 20,000 lt from a vineyard at Chapadmalal beach fromgrape varieties such asSauvignon blanc,Chardonnay,Riesling andGewürztraminer. Since then, the local winery turned into a tourist attraction.[25][26][27]Microbeweries flourished during the 2010s, amounting by 2016 to one third of the national production.[28]
Although the area had suffered from a high rate of unemployment from 1995 to 2003, Mar del Plata has seen 46,000 new jobs created from the third quarter of 2003 to the third quarter of 2008, representing an increase of 22%.[29]
Mar del Plata continues to lead Argentina's room availability: of 440,000 registered hotel rooms nationwide in early 2009, the city was home to nearly 56,000 (5,000 more thanBuenos Aires).[30]
Due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, flights were reduced just to two daily flights to Buenos Aires served by Aerolineas Argentinas.[citation needed]
Highway 2 connects Mar del Plata with Buenos Aires and Route 11 connects it through the coastline, ending atMiramar, 40 km (25 mi) south of Mar del Plata. Route 88 connects toNecochea and Route 226 toBalcarce,Tandil andOlavarría.
Mar del Plata is the most popular destination for conventions in Argentina afterBuenos Aires. Mar del Plata has a wide range of services in this sector. The summer season hosts over fifty theatrical plays.
The city has, for those who do religious tourism, an interesting interreligious circuit that includes a visit among Catholics, in addition to the Cathedral, the Schoenstatt Sanctuary, the “Christ” of the South Jetty, a replica of theLourdes Grotto, the Chapels of Stella Maris and Santa Cecilia, of other cults is theRussian Orthodox Church of Mar del Plata. The Muslim community opens the doors of the Sunni Mosque of the Muslim community. For its part, the Jewish community offers visits to the Gabriel Temple.[33]
TheFiesta Nacional del Mar ("National Sea Festival") with the election and coronation of theSea Queen and her princesses, which takes place in December as the official inauguration of the summer season.
ThePremios Estrella de Mar ("Sea Star Awards") which honor the best stage plays and shows of the season.
The ValencianFalles week, a local reenactment of theValencian event conducted by the Valencian community.
The Mar del Plata Fashion Show, along with a number of fashion parades that gathers the besthaute couture designers.
TheFiesta Nacional de los Pescadores (National Fishermen's Festival), a colourful display of seafarers' tradition and cuisine.
TheProsa Mutante is a cycle of literary experiences andarts collective established in January 2013 that takes place since then every Thursday from 20:00 at Piano Bar in which stage over 100 local, national and international artists have performed.[35]
The local Government sponsors a Symphonic Orchestra.
The Museum of the Sea, opened in 2000 and closed in 2012; it held a collection of over 30,000 sea shells, among other specimens
Mar del Plata has a wide variety of clubs located by district: the area of Escollera Norte (known for its quantity of pubs and nightclubs) and Constitution Avenue.
The Museum of Natural ScienceLorenzo Scaglia, specialized inPaleontology of theQuaternary species around the region.[39]
TheMar del Plata Museum of the Sea, which included one of the most complete collections of seasnails of the World. The museum has been closed to the public since September 2012.[40]
Villa Victoria, a vintage wooden house, the former residence of the late writerVictoria Ocampo, now a place for art expositions and classical music.[41]
The Submarine Force Museum, located close to the Mar del Plata Naval Base.[42]
Mario Benedetti (1945), electronics engineer, the main Argentine scientist involved in theLarge Hadron Collider project. He is also the owner ofTío Curzio, one of the most fashionable restaurants in the city.[43][44][45]
Erica Vanessa Bibbó (1985), the first female commander of a naval unit in theArgentine navy.[46][47]
Amado Boudou (born November 19, 1962), former Vice President of Argentina.
Alberto Bruzzone (1907–1994), painter, was born inSan Juan but chose Mar del Plata as his home city.
Germán Burgos (born April 16, 1969), former goalkeeper who played two World Cups. Currently, he is oriented to music.
Macarena Achaga (born March 5, 1992), actress, model, and singer.
Homero Cárpena (1910–2001), actor, playwright and filmmaker.
Martin Donovan (not to be confused with American actorMartin Donovan), Hollywood screenwriter and producer, co-author of the screenplay of movies likeDeath Becomes Her andLoving Couples.
Villa Normandy, built in 1919An example of "Mar del Plata Style" house
The development of the city as a seasonal summer resort in the early 20th century led upper class tourists from Buenos Aires to build a European-inspired architecture, based mainly on thepicturesque and later on theart deco styles. This gave Mar del Plata the nickname of theArgentineBiarritz. Thebuilding industry became the main non-seasonal activity of the town by 1920.
During the 1930s, 1940s, and beyond, local architects and builders, like Auro Tiribelli, Arturo Lemmi, Alberto Córsico-Picollini and Raúl Camusso recreated and transformed the picturesque values into a middle-class scale, marking the beginning of avernacular architecture, calledMar del Plata Style, consisting in small samples of the luxury-laden summer residences of high society, built for the summer visitor as well as for the local resident.
Thesechalets were built with stonefaçades,gable roofs covered with Spanish or French tiles, prominenteaves and frontporches. This gives the town some distinctive urban character compared with otherArgentine cities, despite the fact that the growing mass of tourists in the '60s imposed the construction of large apartment buildings and skyscrapers as the predominant architectural style downtown.[53]
Mar del Plata has anoceanic climate (Cfb, according to theKöppen climate classification), with humid and moderate summers and relatively cool winters, although polarair masses fromAntarctica are frequent. The average daily mean temperature in January is 20.4 °C (69 °F). It is 7.5 °C (45 °F) in July. The West-Southwest winds can take the temperature below 0 °C (32 °F) between mid May and early October, while the Southeast ones (the so-calledSudestada) are stronger, producing coastal showers and rough seas, as well as strong squalls, but the cold is much less intense.[54] There isfog in the last days of fall, and springtime is often marred by sea winds and sudden temperature changes.
A snowy winter's day at Playa Grande, July 10, 2004
The city's summer maximum temperatures fluctuate broadly around the average of 26 °C (79 °F): while there are many days between 30 °C (86 °F) and 35 °C (95 °F) (although less than in other areas of the Pampas region), strong on-shore or southerly winds can also keep temperatures closer to 20 °C (68 °F), and nights can sometimes be very cool even in midsummer (falling below 10 °C (50 °F) sometimes). However, the summer nights are usually cool to pleasant, with temperatures between 12 °C (54 °F) to 16 °C (61 °F).Traditionally, Easter is seen as the "last" weekend to go to the beach on theArgentine Atlantic Coast, and average maximum temperatures are around 22 °C (72 °F) at that time. While some years can have the last few days of about 30 °C (86 °F) around that time, it is also possible to experience daily highs of 15 °C (59 °F).Winter temperatures average 13 °C (55 °F) during the day and 4 °C (39 °F) at night; they sometimes climb to 22 °C (72 °F) especially in August, but there are also days where highs stay below 6 °C (43 °F) and temperatures fall some degrees below 0 °C (32 °F) at night.
Spring brings the most variable weather, with heat waves bringing highs of more than 30 °C (86 °F) followed by highs of 10 °C (50 °F) to 15 °C (59 °F) and perhaps a late-season frosty night all perfectly possible in October and November.
There are about six days of frost each year in the city center, and almost 27 recorded at the airport.[55] The average dates for the first and last frost are May 23 and October 4 respectively.[56] Snowfall is not uncommon, but snow accumulation on the ground is rare, a phenomenon that takes place every six years or so, according to the 1960-2004 data.[57] Among the best known such occurrences in the last decades were the 1975 and 1991 snowstorms, but there were also snow accumulations in 1994 and 1997 in the highest hills area ofSierra de los Padres, in 1995 along the southern coast; the other two during the first hours of July 10, 2004[57] and July 15, 2010,[58] and again in Sierra de los Padres and the southern coast on September 11, 2015.[59][60] There wereflurries in September 1986, June 2007, July 2011 and August 2013.[61]
The record high is 42.4 °C (108 °F) on January 14, 2022[62][63] while the record low is −9.3 °C (15 °F) on July 6, 1988.[64] Thewet season occurs between October and April, especially in summer (December to March), with values over 90 millimetres (3.5 in) in each of those months. The average annual rainfall is 926.1 millimetres (36 in).
Climate data for Mar del Plata (1991–2020, extremes 1888–present)
Thetown council has some legislative powers. The term of office for both the mayor and council members is four years.[70]
In 1919, Mar del Plata became the first town in South America to have aSocialist Mayor, a son of Italian Immigrants,Teodoro Bronzini. TheSocialist Party would dominate the city political landscape for most of the 20th century.
Mar del Plata has had 109[71] Mayors and Commissioners from 1881 to the present.
There is a work by the American political scientistSusan Stokes[72] about the democratic process in Mar del Plata since 1983 in comparison to other regions of Argentina.[73][74] One of the maintheses of herarticles is that the social and economic development of Mar del Plata was quite atypical, with a strong prevalence of middle-class values that discouraged the policy ofclientelism that is the common background in other urban environments of Argentina.[75]
The area has many schools and universities, both private and public. It once had a German school, Johann-Gutenberg-Schule.[76]There is a wide variety of art schools:
Escuela de Artes Visuales Martín A Malharro: A higher education school based on modern visual arts with graduate departments of graphic design, photography, illustration, teacher education, scenography and film.
Polivalente de Arte (Escuela de Educación Secundaria Especializada en Arte Nº 1): school of secondary education that also works as a vocational school in the fields of Art, Music or Dance.
Also, there are twoconservatories (classical and popular music), a vocational school of art, and a municipal school of classical and modern dance.
In 2003 Mar del Plata hosted the 2ndParapan American Games that featured 1,500 athletes from 28 countries competed in nine sporting events.[81] This was the last Parapan American Games that was not tied to thePan American Games.
^Creemos, sin embargo, que por ser el primer contacto que los hombres del Río de la Plata tomaron con el mar se llamó a este punto precisamente mar "del Plata". Cova, Roberto Osvaldo (1968)Síntesis histórica de Mar del Plata: notas para el conocimiento del origen, evolución y desarrollo de la ciudad y de la zona. Municipalidad de General Pueyrredón, p. 8(in Spanish)
^Crowder, Patricia; Isla, Fededico I.; Denegri, Guillermo; Farías, Alberto; Cermelo, Leonardo (2005),Mar del Plata: Fragilidad Costera, Argentina: MARTIN - Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, p. 131
Cacopardo, Fernando A. & others:Mar del Plata, Ciudad e Historia. Alianza Editorial S.A./UNMDP, Madrid/Buenos Aires, 1997.ISBN950-40-0155-6.(in Spanish)
Rocatagliata, Juan A. & others:Mar del Plata y su Región. Sociedad Argentina de Estudios Geográficos, Buenos Aires, 1984.(in Spanish)
Anniversary Editions ofLa Capital newspaper: 1955, 1980, 1985, 2005.(in Spanish)
Barili, Roberto T.:Mar del Plata, Reseña Histórica. Published by the Municipality of Gral. Pueyrredón, Mar del Plata, 1964.(in Spanish)
Stokes, Susan C.:Do Informal Institutions Make Democracy Work? Accounting for Accountability in Argentina. University of Chicago. Prepared for presentation at the conference, "Informal Institutions in Latin America". University of Notre Dame, April 23–24, 2003.
Shapiro, Ian and Bedi, Sonu :Political Contingency: Studying the Unexpected, the Accidental, and the Unforeseen. New York University Press, 2007.ISBN0-8147-4044-8
Helmke, Gretchen and Levitsky, Steven:Informal Institutions and Democracy:Lessons from Latin America. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.ISBN0-8018-8351-2
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