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Buenos Aires - Overview and History

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Known as “Paris of the South”, Buenos Aires is the bustling capital of Argentina which can be found on the coast of the De la Plata River and is one of the largest cities throughout the Southern continent with the area measuring at around 307,570 square kilometres.

Spanish seaman Juan Diaz de Solis found the Rio de la Plata in 1516 but he never made it to shore, he was attacked and killed by the native Charrua or Guarani tribe (whilst this fact was never truly confirmed, it has always been strongly believed as the events that took place)

It wasn’t until 20 years later that the city was found as Santa Maria del Buen Ayre on 2nd February 1536 by a Spanish expedition led by Pedro de Mendoza. This led to an unfortunate set of events and as Buenos Ayres relied on trade from those early days, the Spanish insisted that all trade to Europe was to pass through Lima (another region the Spanish claimed for themselves) so that taxes were collected upon arrival and eventually trading was later forbidden completely so steps were taken and smuggling was the only way of surviving such a decree. The land remained under Spanish rule for many centuries but upon its release in the mid 19th century, it has since become a thriving region.

As the capitol of Argentina, you find that most of the population is concentrated within Buenos Aires – over one third of the population live in the area which totals about 32 million people and there are a mixture of different ethnic backgrounds and whilst the main language is Spanish, English is taught in many schools and this is the second alternative language for the area.

La Plata is the capitol city of Buenos Aires located just 50 km south of the city and after its discovery, it has held the title of capitol since Buenos Aires was made a federal district in 1880. For a short time in 1952 the city was named as Eva Peron but the original name was soon restored in 1955 to La Plata.

The city was officially founded on November 19th, 1882 by then governor Dardo Rocha who during his reign commissioned a new city be built to host government institutions and to include a university. The La Plata University was subsequently founded in 1897 and is well known today for its observatory and palaeontology museum.

It is said that Buenos Aires is capitol of the Tango because in the mid 19th century, some of the residents that lived in the area – immigrants, peasants and some poorer portenos started up a social class which was deemed to create a mixed culture and this was just a start of a popular dance that still remains in “Paris of the South” and is widely taught to visitors and locals alike.

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