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Buenos Aires, city and capital ofArgentina. The city is coextensive with the Federal District (Distrito Federal) and is situated on the shore of theRío de la Plata, 150 miles (240 km) from theAtlantic Ocean. Buenos Aires is one ofLatin America’s most important ports and most populous cities, as well as the national center of commerce, industry, politics,culture, and technology. According to tradition, Spanish colonizerPedro de Mendoza established the first settlement there, which he named Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Aire (“Our LadySt. Mary of the Good Air”). Buenos Aires locals are referred to asporteños (“people of the port”), because so many of the city’s inhabitants historically arrived by boat from Europe. Area city, 78 square miles (203 square km); Greater Buenos Aires, 1,500 square miles (3,885 square km). Pop. (2022) city, 3,121,707; ; (2022) Greater Buenos Aires, 17,523,996.

Character of the city

The Argentine poet and philosopherEzequiel Martínez Estrada (1895–1964) called Buenos Aires “The Head of Goliath,” ametaphor that likens the imbalance of the city’s relation with the rest of the country to that of a large-headed giant with a frail body. The city’s wealth and influence overshadow the life of the rest of the country, and Buenos Aires also presents Argentina with its severest economic and social problems. Thisdichotomy has made Buenos Aires a center for political and social unrest.

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This grandiose city with wide avenues and a vibrantcosmopolitan flair is more generally European than Latin American in character. Having littlecolonialarchitecture and few landmark buildings, Buenos Aires is chiefly a city of distinctive neighborhoods that have their own meeting places, generally coffeehouses or bars. This is a tradition rooted in the colonial period, when the center of each neighborhood was ageneral store and bar known as apulpería. These neighborhoods provide a sense ofcommunity for people who live in anurban sprawl that by the early 21st century was growing twice as fast as the country as a whole.

The energy and bustle of modern Buenos Aires is most evident in the city center—the locus of entertainment, shopping, and café-going.Porteños relish politics,football (soccer), and the city’s cultural offerings. At night Buenos Aires’sboites (nightclubs) swell with revelers dancing thetango, the emotional dance that originated in the lower-class areas of the city and that is said to reflect the essence of thesoul of theporteño.

Landscape

City site

The city of Buenos Aires is located at the northeastern edge of the flat plain known as thePampas, which occupies the agricultural heartland of Argentina. It is situated at the point where theParaná River delta widens to become the Río de la Plata estuary. The eastern and northern limits of themetropolitan area are defined by the Río de la Plata, and the city’s most prominent physical characteristics are the numerous small rivers that flow through itsperiphery. The center of the city lies on a bluff overlooking the Río de la Plata, and to the south flows a small river, the Riachuelo, the banks of which mark the other higher ground in the city. The rest of the city is laid out on the floodplains of the rivers, virtually without significant elevations.

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