Argentina
Definición
Argentina ( español: [aɾxentina] ), oficialmente la República Argentina (español: República Argentina ), es una república federal ubicada principalmente en la mitad sur de América del Sur. Al compartir la mayor parte del Cono Sur con Chile al oeste, el país también está bordeado por Bolivia y Paraguay al norte, Brasil al noreste, Uruguay y el Océano Atlántico sur al este, y el Pasaje Drake al sur. Con una superficie continental de 2.780.400 km (1.073.500 millas cuadradas), Argentina es el octavo país más grande del mundo, el segundo más grande de América Latina y el más grande de habla hispana. Se subdivide en veintitrés provincias (español: provincias , singular provincia) y una ciudad autónoma ( ciudad autónoma ), Buenos Aires, que es la capital federal de la nación (español: Capital Federal ) según lo decidido por el Congreso. Las provincias y la capital tienen sus propias constituciones, pero existen bajo un sistema federal. Argentina reclama soberanía sobre una parte de la Antártida, las Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands ) y las Islas Georgias del Sur y Sandwich del Sur.La presencia humana más antigua registrada en el área de la Argentina actual data del Paleolítico. El país tiene sus raíces en la colonización española de la región durante el siglo XVI. Argentina se levantó como el estado sucesor del Virreinato del Río de la Plata, un virreinato español de ultramar fundado en 1776. La declaración y la lucha por la independencia (1810-1818) fue seguida por una guerra civil extendida que duró hasta 1861, que culminó en el la reorganización del país como una federación de provincias con Buenos Aires como su ciudad capital. Posteriormente, el país disfrutó de relativa paz y estabilidad, con olas masivas de inmigración europea que reformaron radicalmente su perspectiva cultural y demográfica.
Después de 1930, Argentina cayó en la inestabilidad política y las periódicas crisis económicas que la llevaron al subdesarrollo, aunque, sin embargo, se mantuvo entre los quince países más ricos hasta mediados del siglo XX. Tras la muerte del presidente Juan Perón en 1974, su esposa Isabel Martínez de Perón ascendió a la presidencia. Fue derrocada en 1976 por un golpe de Estado liderado por militares, que elevó a Jorge Rafael Videla a la presidencia y nombró al gobierno como el Proceso Nacional de Reorganización.. Con la ayuda de los Estados Unidos, en la Operación Cóndor, Videla persiguió a izquierdistas, socialistas, disidentes políticos y ciudadanos argentinos normales que se cree están asociados con grupos de izquierda en la Guerra Sucia; decenas de miles fueron internados en campos de detención secretos, donde miles fueron torturados y ejecutados en secreto. El gobierno militar renunció en 1983, y muchos líderes militares de alto rango involucrados en la persecución de disidentes fueron posteriormente condenados y encarcelados por sus papeles en la Guerra Sucia durante presidencias posteriores. Argentina conserva su estatus histórico como potencia media en asuntos internacionales, y es una potencia regional prominente en el Cono Sur y América Latina. Argentina tiene la segunda economía más grande de América del Sur, la tercera más grande de América Latina y es miembro de las principales economías del G-15 y el G-20. También es miembro fundador de las Naciones Unidas, el Banco Mundial, la Organización Mundial del Comercio, el Mercosur, la Unión de Naciones Sudamericanas, la Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y del Caribe y la Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos. Es el país con el segundo índice de desarrollo humano más alto de América Latina con una calificación de "muy alto". Debido a su estabilidad, tamaño de mercado y creciente sector de alta tecnología, Argentina se clasifica como una economía de altos ingresos en el año fiscal 2019.
Nombre y etimología
La descripción del país por la palabra Argentina se ha encontrado en un mapa veneciano en 1536.
En inglés, el nombre "Argentina" proviene del español, sin embargo, el nombre no es español, sino italiano. Argentina (masculino argentino ) significa en italiano "(hecho) de plata, color plata", probablemente tomado del adjetivo francés antiguo argentino "(hecho) de plata"> "color plata" ya mencionado en el siglo XII. La palabra francesa argentino es la forma femenina de argentin y deriva de plata "plata" con el sufijo -in (misma construcción que " acerin francés antiguo " (hecho) de acero ", de acier " acero " "(hecho) de madera de abeto", de OF sap "fir" + -in ). El nombre italiano "Argentina" para el país implica Terra Argentina "tierra de plata" o Costa Argentina "costa de plata". En italiano, el adjetivo o el nombre propio a menudo se usa de forma autónoma como sustantivo y lo reemplaza y se dice l'Argentina .
El nombre Argentina probablemente fue dado primero por los navegantes venecianos y genoveses, como Giovanni Caboto. En español y en portugués, las palabras para "plata" son respectivamente plata y prata y "(hecho) de plata" se dice plateado y prateado . Argentina se asoció por primera vez con la leyenda de las montañas de plata, muy extendida entre los primeros exploradores europeos de la cuenca del Plata.
El primer uso escrito del nombre en español se puede remontar a La Argentina , un poema de 1602 de Martín del Barco Centenera que describe la región. Aunque "Argentina" ya era de uso común en el siglo XVIII, el país fue formalmente llamado "Virreinato de el Río de la Plata "por el Imperio español, y las" Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata "después de la independencia.
La constitución de 1826 incluyó el primer uso del nombre "República Argentina" en documentos legales. El nombre "Confederación Argentina" también se usó comúnmente y se formalizó en la Constitución argentina de 1853. En 1860 un decreto presidencial resolvió el nombre del país como "República Argentina", y la enmienda constitucional de ese año determinó todos los nombres desde 1810 como legalmente válidos.
En el idioma inglés, el país se llamaba tradicionalmente "el argentino", imitando el uso típico español de la Argentina y quizás como resultado de un acortamiento erróneo del nombre más completo 'República Argentina'. "Los argentinos" pasaron de moda a mediados y finales del siglo XX, y ahora el país simplemente se conoce como "Argentina".
En el idioma español "Argentina" es femenino (" La [República] Argentina "), tomando el artículo femenino "La" como la sílaba inicial de "Argentina" no se estresa.
Historia
Era precolombina
The earliest traces of human life in the area now known as Argentina are dated from the Paleolithic period, with further traces in the Mesolithic and Neolithic. 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, such as the Selknam and Yaghan in the extreme south. The second group are advanced hunters and food gatherers which include the Puelche, Querandí and Serranos in the center-east; and the Tehuelche in the south—all of them conquered by the Mapuche spreading from Chile—and the Kom and Wichi in the north. The last group are farmers with pottery, like the Charrúa, Minuane and Guaraní in the northeast, with slash and burn semisedentary existence; the advanced Diaguita sedentary trading culture in the northwest, which was conquered by the Inca Empire around 1480; the Toconoté and Hênîa and Kâmîare in the country's center, and the Huarpe in the center-west, a culture that raised llama 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 and Sebastian Cabot visited the territory that is now Argentina in 1516 and 1526, respectively. In 1536 Pedro de Mendoza founded the small settlement of Buenos Aires, which was abandoned in 1541.
Further colonization efforts came from Paraguay—establishing the Governorate of the Río de la Plata—Peru and Chile. Francisco de Aguirre founded Santiago del Esteroin 1553. Londres was founded in 1558; Mendoza, in 1561; San Juan, in 1562; San Miguel de Tucumán, in 1565. Juan de Garay founded Santa Fe in 1573 and the same year Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera set up Córdoba. Garay went further south to re-found Buenos Aires in 1580. San Luis was established in 1596.
The Spanish Empire subordinated the economic potential of the Argentine territory to the immediate wealth of the silver and gold mines in Bolivia and Peru, and as such it became part of the Viceroyalty of Peru until the creation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata 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 and the example of the first Atlantic Revolutions generated criticism of the absolutist monarchy that ruled the country. As in the rest of Spanish America, the overthrow of Ferdinand VII during the Peninsular War created great concern.
Independence and civil wars
Beginning a process from which Argentina was to emerge as successor state to the Viceroyalty, the 1810 May Revolution replaced the viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros with the First Junta, a new government in Buenos Aires 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, Upper Peru and Paraguay, which later became independent states.
Revolutionaries split into two antagonist groups: the Centralists and the Federalists—a move that would define Argentina's first decades of independence. The Assembly of the Year XIII appointed Gervasio Antonio de Posadas as Argentina's first Supreme Director.
On 9 July 1816, the Congress of Tucumán formalized the Declaration of Independence, which is now celebrated as Independence Day, a national holiday. One year later General Martín Miguel de Güemes stopped royalists on the north, and General José de San Martín took an army across the Andes and secured the independence of Chile; then he led the fight to the Spanish stronghold of Lima and proclaimed the independence of Peru. In 1819 Buenos Aires enacted a centralist constitution that was soon abrogated by federalists.
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 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 in 1831, led by Juan Manuel de Rosas. During his regime he faced a French blockade (1838–1840), the War of the Confederation (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, another powerful caudillo, beat him out of power. As new president of the Confederation, Urquiza enacted the liberal 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
Overpowering Urquiza in the 1861 Battle of Pavón, Bartolomé Mitre secured Buenos Aires predominance and was elected as the first president of the reunified country. He was followed by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda; these three presidencies set up the bases of the modern Argentine State.
Starting with Julio Argentino Roca 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 wave and decreasing mortality, the Argentine population grew fivefold and the economy 15-fold: from 1870 to 1910 Argentina's wheat exports went from 100,000 to 2,500,000 t (110,000 to 2,760,000 short tons) per year, while frozen beef exports increased from 25,000 to 365,000 t (28,000 to 402,000 short tons) per year, placing Argentina as one of the world's top five exporters. Its railway mileage rose from 503 to 31,104 km (313 to 19,327 mi). Fostered by a new public, compulsory, free and secular education system, literacy skyrocketed from 22% to 65%, a level higher than most Latin American nations would reach even fifty years later. Furthermore, real GDP grew so fast that despite the huge immigration influx, per capita income 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'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 labor-intensive in the 1930s.
In 1912, President Roque Sáenz Peña enacted universal and secret male suffrage, which allowed Hipólito Yrigoyen, leader of the Radical Civic Union (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. The second administration of Yrigoyen faced an economic crisis, precipitated by the Great Depression.
Infamous Decade
In 1930, Yrigoyen was ousted from power by the military led by José Félix Uriburu. Although Argentina remained among the fifteen richest countries until mid-century, this coup d'état 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 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. A new military coup toppled the government, and Argentina declared war on the Axis Powers a month before the end of World War II in Europe. The minister of welfare, Juan Domingo Perón, was fired and jailed because of his high popularity among workers. His liberation was forced by a massive popular demonstration, and he went on to win the 1946 election.
Peronist years
Perón created a political movement known as Peronism. He nationalized strategic industries and services, improved wages and working conditions, paid the full external debtand achieved nearly full employment. The economy, however, began to decline in 1950 because of over-expenditure. His highly popular wife, Eva Perón, played a central political role. She pushed Congress to enact women's suffrage in 1947, and developed an unprecedented social assistance to the most vulnerable sectors of society.However, her declining health did not allow her to run for the vice-presidency in 1951, and she died of cancer the following year. Perón was reelected in 1951, surpassing even his 1946 performance. In 1955 the Navy bombed the Plaza de Mayo in an ill-fated attempt to kill the President. A few months later, during the self-called Liberating Revolution coup, he resigned and went into exile in Spain.
The new head of State, Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, proscribed Peronism and banned all of its manifestations; nevertheless, Peronists kept an organized underground. Arturo Frondizi from the UCR won the following elections. He encouraged investment to achieve energetic and industrial self-sufficiency, reversed a chronic trade deficit and lifted Peronism proscription; yet his efforts to stay on good terms with Peronists and the military earned him the rejection of both and a new coup forced him out. But Senate Chief José María Guido reacted swiftly and applied the anti-power vacuum legislation, becoming president instead; elections were repealed and Peronism proscribed again. Arturo Illia was elected in 1963 and led to an overall increase in prosperity; however his attempts to legalize Peronism resulted in his overthrow in 1966 by the Juan Carlos Onganía-led coup d'état called the Argentine Revolution, creating a new military government that sought to rule indefinitely.
Military dictatorship and the Dirty War
The "Dirty War" (Spanish: Guerra Sucia) was part of Operation Condor, originally planned by the CIA, and for which the United States government provided technical support and supplied military aid to during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations. The Dirty War involved state terrorism 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 economic policies of the regime. Victims of the state terrorism included an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 victims, included left-wing activists and militants, trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronistguerrillas and alleged sympathizers. The guerrillas, whose number of victims are nearly 500–540 between military and police officials and up to 230 civilians were already inactive in 1976, so instead of a war the actual situation was a genocide practiced by the Junta over the civilian population.
Declassified documents of the Chilean secret police cite an official estimate by the Batallón de Inteligencia 601 of 22,000 killed or "disappeared" between 1975 and mid-1978. During this period, in which it was later revealed 8,625 "disappeared" in the form of PEN (Poder Ejecutivo Nacional, anglicized as "National Executive Power") detainees who were held in clandestine detention camps throughout Argentina before eventually being freed under diplomatic pressure. The number of people believed to have been killed or "disappeared", depending on the source, range from 9,089 to 30,000 in the period from 1976 to 1983, when the military was forced from power following Argentina's defeat in the Falklands War. The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons estimates that around 13,000 were disappeared.
After democratic government was restored, Congress passed legislation to provide compensation to victims' families. Some 11,000 Argentines have applied to the relevant authorities and received up to US $200,000 each as monetary compensation for the murder of loved ones during the military dictatorship.
The exact chronology of the repression is still debated, however, as in some senses the long political war started in 1969. Trade unionists were targeted for assassination by the Peronist and Marxist paramilitaries as early as 1969, and individual cases of state-sponsored terrorism against Peronism and the left can be traced back to the Bombing of Plaza de Mayo in 1955. The Trelew massacre of 1972, the actions of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance since 1973, and Isabel Martínez de Perón's "annihilation decrees" against left-wing guerrillas during Operativo Independencia (translates to Operation of Independence) in 1975, have also been suggested as dates for 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 Cordobazoand the Rosariazo. The terrorist guerrilla organization Montoneros kidnapped and executed Aramburu. The newly chosen head of government, Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, seeking to ease the growing political pressure, let Héctor José Cámpora be the Peronist candidate instead of Perón. Cámpora won the March 1973 election, issued a pardon 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 union leaders and left-wing youth from Montoneros—resulted in the Ezeiza Massacre. Cámpora resigned, overwhelmed by political violence, and Perón won the September 1973 election with his third wife Isabel as vice-president. He expelled Montoneros from the party and they became once again a clandestine organization. José López Rega organized the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (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 three armed forces, led by army general Jorge Rafael Videla. They initiated the National Reorganization Process, often shortened to Proceso.
The Proceso shut down Congress, removed the judges of the Supreme Court, banned political parties and unions, and resorted to the forced disappearance of suspected guerrilla members and of anyone believed to be associated with the left-wing. By the end of 1976 Montoneros had lost near 2,000 members; by 1977, the ERP was completely defeated. A severely weakened Montoneros launched a counterattack in 1979, which was quickly annihilated, ending the guerrilla threat. Nevertheless, the junta stayed in power. Then head of state General Leopoldo Galtieri launched Operation Rosario, which escalated into the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de Malvinas); en dos meses, Argentina fue derrotada por el Reino Unido. Reynaldo Bignone reemplazó a Galtieri y comenzó a organizar la transición al gobierno democrático.
Siglos XX-XXI, era de Kirchner
Raúl Alfonsín ganó las elecciones de 1983 para perseguir a los responsables de violaciones de derechos humanos durante el Proceso : el juicio de las Juntas y otras cortes marciales condenó a todos los líderes golpistas pero, bajo presión militar, también promulgó el Punto Final y la Obediencia Debida. leyes, que detuvo los procesamientos más adelante en la cadena de mando. El empeoramiento de la crisis económica y la hiperinflación redujeron su apoyo popular y el peronista Carlos Menem ganó las elecciones de 1989. Poco después, los disturbios obligaron a Alfonsín a una renuncia anticipada.
Menem adoptó políticas neoliberales: un tipo de cambio fijo, la desregulación de las empresas, las privatizaciones y el desmantelamiento de las barreras proteccionistas normalizaron la economía por un tiempo. Él perdonó a los oficiales que habían sido sentenciados durante el gobierno de Alfonsín. La Enmienda Constitucional de 1994 permitió a Menem ser elegido para un segundo mandato. La economía comenzó a disminuir en 1995, con un aumento del desempleo y la recesión; liderado por Fernando de la Rúa, la UCR volvió a la presidencia en las elecciones de 1999.
De la Rúa mantuvo el plan económico de Menem a pesar del empeoramiento de la crisis, que provocó un creciente descontento social. Se respondió a una fuga masiva de capital congelando las cuentas bancarias, lo que generó mayor confusión. Los disturbios de diciembre de 2001 lo obligaron a renunciar. El Congreso designó a Eduardo Duhalde como presidente interino, quien derogó la tasa de cambio fija establecida por Menem, causando que muchos argentinos pierdan una parte significativa de sus ahorros. A fines de 2002, la crisis económica comenzó a retroceder, pero el asesinato de dos piqueteros por parte de la policía causó conmoción política, lo que llevó a Duhalde a adelantar las elecciones. Néstor Kirchner fue elegido como el nuevo presidente.
Impulsando las políticas económicas neokeynesianas establecidas por Duhalde, Kirchner puso fin a la crisis económica logrando importantes superávits fiscales y comerciales y un fuerte crecimiento del PIB. Bajo su administración, Argentina reestructuró su deuda incumplida con un descuento sin precedentes de aproximadamente 70% en la mayoría de los bonos, pagó deudas con el Fondo Monetario Internacional, depuró militares de oficiales con dudosos registros de derechos humanos, anuló y anuló las leyes de Punto Final y Obediencia Debida. , los declaró inconstitucionales y reanudó el enjuiciamiento legal de los crímenes de las Juntas. No postuló a la reelección, sino que promovió la candidatura de su esposa, la senadora Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, elegida en 2007 y reelegida en 2011. La administración de Fernández de Kirchner supervisó una política exterior positiva con buenas relaciones con otras naciones sudamericanas; sin embargo, las relaciones entre los Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido siguieron siendo muy tensas. Jorge Rafael Videla, quien dirigió la represión durante la Guerra Sucia, fue sentenciado a cadena perpetua en una prisión civil en 2010 bajo la administración de Kirchner; luego murió en prisión en 2013.
El 22 de noviembre de 2015, después de un empate en la primera vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales del 25 de octubre, Mauricio Macri ganó el primer balotaje en la historia de Argentina, derrotando al candidato del Frente para la Victoria Daniel Scioli y convirtiéndose en presidente electo. Macri es el primer presidente no radical o peronista electo democráticamente desde 1916. Asumió el cargo el 10 de diciembre de 2015. En abril de 2016, el gobierno de Macri introdujo medidas de austeridad destinadas a combatir la inflación y los déficits públicos.
Geografía
Con una superficie continental de 2,780,400 km (1,073,518 millas cuadradas), Argentina se encuentra en el sur de Sudamérica, compartiendo fronteras terrestres con Chile a través de los Andes al oeste; Bolivia y Paraguay al norte; Brasil al noreste, Uruguay y el Océano Atlántico sur al este; y el Pasaje Drake al sur; para una longitud total del borde terrestre de 9,376 km (5,826 mi). Su límite costero sobre el Río de la Plata y el Océano Atlántico Sur es de 5,117 km (3,180 mi) de largo.
Argentina's highest point is Aconcagua in the Mendoza province (6,959 m (22,831 ft) above sea level), also the highest point in the Southern and Western Hemispheres. The lowest point is Laguna del Carbón in the San Julián Great Depression Santa Cruz province (−105 m (−344 ft) 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 Grande de San Juan and Río Mojinete rivers in Jujuy province; the southernmost is Cape San Pío in 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 3,694 km (2,295 mi), while the maximum east–west one is 1,423 km (884 mi).
Some of the major rivers are the Paraná, Uruguay—which join to form the Río de la Plata, Paraguay, Salado, Negro, Santa Cruz, Pilcomayo, Bermejo and 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.
Regions
Argentina is divided into seven geographical regions:
- Northwest, a continuation of the high Puna with even higher, more rugged topography to the far-west; the arid precordillera, filled with narrow valleys or quebradas to the mid-west; and an extension of the mountainous Yungas jungles to the east.
- Mesopotamia, a subtropical wedge covering the western Paraná Plateau and neighboring lowlands enclosed by the Paraná and Uruguay rivers.
- Gran Chaco, a large, subtropical and tropical low-lying, gently sloping alluvial plain between Mesopotamia and the Andes.
- Sierras Pampeanas, a series of medium-height mountain chains located in the center.
- Cuyo, a basin and range area in the central Andes piedmont, to the west.
- Pampas, a massive and hugely fertile alluvial plain located in the center east.
- Patagonia, a large southern plateau consisting mostly of arid, rocky steppes to the east; with moister cold grasslands to the south and dense subantarctic forests to the west.
Biodiversity
Argentina is a megadiverse country hosting one of the greatest ecosystem varieties in the world: 15 continental zones, 3 oceanic 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 reptilian species (ranked 16th)
- 162 cataloged amphibian species (ranked 19th)
Climate
Although the most populated areas are generally temperate, Argentina has an exceptional amount of climate diversity, ranging from subtropical in the north to polar in the far south. The average annual precipitation ranges from 150 millimetres (6 in) in the driest parts of Patagonia to over 2,000 millimetres (79 in) in the westernmost parts of Patagonia and the northeastern parts of the country. Mean annual temperatures range from 5 °C (41 °F) in the far south to 25 °C (77 °F) 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, a hot dry wind, affects Cuyo and the central Pampas. Squeezed of all moisture during the 6,000 m (19,685 ft) descent from the Andes, Zonda winds can blow for hours with gusts up to 120 km/h (75 mph), fueling wildfires and causing damage; between June and November, when the Zonda blows, snowstorms and blizzard (viento blanco) conditions usually affect higher elevations.
Politics
Gobierno
Argentina es una república constitucional federal y una democracia representativa. El gobierno está regulado por un sistema de controles y equilibrios definido por la Constitución de Argentina, el documento legal supremo del país. La sede del gobierno es la ciudad de Buenos Aires, según lo designado por el Congreso. El sufragio es universal, igual, secreto y obligatorio.
El gobierno federal se compone de tres ramas:
La rama legislativa consiste en el Congreso bicameral, compuesto por el Senado y las cámaras adjuntas, que hace la ley federal, declara la guerra, aprueba los tratados y tiene el poder de la bolsa y de la acusación, por la cual puede expulsar a los miembros del gobierno. La Cámara de Diputados representa a las personas y tiene 257 miembros con derecho a voto elegidos por un período de cuatro años. Los asientos se distribuyen entre las provincias por población cada décimo año. A partir de 2014, diez provincias tienen solo cinco diputados, mientras que la provincia de Buenos Aires, que es la más poblada, tiene 70. La Cámara de Senadores representa a las provincias, tiene 72 miembros elegidos en general para períodos de seis años, y cada provincia tiene tres asientos; un tercio de los escaños del Senado se elegirán cada dos años. Al menos un tercio de los candidatos presentados por las partes deben ser mujeres. En la rama ejecutiva, el presidente es el comandante en jefe de las fuerzas armadas, puede vetar proyectos de ley antes de que se conviertan en sujetos sujetos a la anulación del Congreso y nombra a los miembros del gabinete y otros funcionarios que administran y hacen cumplir las leyes federales y políticas. El presidente es elegido directamente por el voto del pueblo, cumple un mandato de cuatro años y puede ser elegido para un cargo no más de dos veces seguidas.
La rama judicial incluye la Corte Suprema y los tribunales federales inferiores interpretan las leyes y revocan aquellas que consideran inconstitucionales. El Judicial es independiente del Ejecutivo y el Legislativo. El Tribunal Supremo tiene siete miembros designados por el presidente -sujeto a la aprobación del Senado- que sirven de por vida. Los jueces de los tribunales inferiores son propuestos por el Consejo de la Magistratura (una secretaría compuesta por representantes de jueces, abogados, investigadores, el Ejecutivo y el Legislativo), y nombrados por el Presidente a la aprobación del Senado.
Provincias
Argentina es una federación de veintitrés provincias y una ciudad autónoma, Buenos Aires. Las provincias se dividen a los fines de la administración en departamentos y municipios, a excepción de la provincia de Buenos Aires, que se divide en partidos. La ciudad de Buenos Aires se divide en comunas.
Las provincias tienen todo el poder que eligieron para no delegar en el gobierno federal; deben ser repúblicas representativas y no deben contradecir la Constitución. Más allá de esto, son completamente autónomos: promulgan sus propias constituciones, organizan libremente sus gobiernos locales y poseen y administran sus recursos naturales y financieros. Algunas provincias tienen legislaturas bicamerales, mientras que otras tienen legislaturas bicamerales.
During the War of Independence the main cities and their surrounding countrysides became provinces though the intervention of their cabildos. The Anarchy of the Year XX completed this process, shaping the original thirteen provinces. Jujuy seceded from 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 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 in 1943.La Pampa and Chaco became provinces in 1951. Misiones did so in 1953, and Formosa, Neuquén, Río Negro, 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.
Foreign relations
Foreign policy is officially handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, which answers to the President.
An historical and current middle power, Argentina bases its foreign policies on the guiding principles of non-intervention, human rights, self-determination, international cooperation, disarmament and peaceful settlement of conflicts. The country is one of the G-15 and G-20 major economies of the world, and a founding member of the UN, WBG, WTO and OAS. In 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 Haiti, Cyprus, Western Sahara and the Middle East.
A prominent Latin American and Southern Cone regional power, Argentina co-founded OEI, CELAC and UNASUR, of which the former president Néstor Kirchner was first Secretary General. It is also a founding member of the Mercosur 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 965,597 km (372,819 sq mi) in Antarctica, where it has the world's oldest continuous state presence, since 1904. This overlaps claims by Chileand the 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 disputes sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas), and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the United Kingdom as Overseas Territories.
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 National Defense System, an exclusive responsibility of the federal government, coordinated by the Ministry of Defense, and comprising the Army, the Navy and the 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 its own weapon research facilities, shipyards, ordnance, tank and plane factories. However, real military expenditures declined steadily after 1981 and the defense budget in 2011 was about 0.74% of GDP, a historical minimum, below the Latin American average.
The Interior Security System, jointly administered by the federal and subscribing provincial governments. At the federal level it is coordinated by the Interior, Security and Justice ministries, and monitored by Congress. It is enforced by the Federal Police; the Prefecture, which fulfills coast guard duties; the Gendarmerie, which serves border guard tasks; and the 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 UN mandate and has remained involved in peacekeepingefforts in multiple locations like UNPROFOR in Croatia/Bosnia, Gulf of Fonseca, 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 engineers of the Argentine Armed Forces are embedded in an Italian brigade.
In 2007, an Argentine contingent including helicopters, boats and water purification plants was sent to help Bolivia against their worst floods in decades. In 2010 the Armed Forces were also involved in Haiti and 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. It has a "very high" rating on the Human Development Index and a relatively high GDP per capita, with a considerable internal market size and a growing share of the high-tech sector.
A middle emerging economy and one of the world's top developing nations, Argentina 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 and now it's just an upper middle-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. Income distribution, having improved since 2002, is classified as "medium", 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.
Industry
In 2012 manufacturing accounted for 20.3% of GDP—the largest goods-producing 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 in 2011, the diversified manufacturing sector rests on a steadily growing network of industrial parks (314 as of 2013)
In 2012 the leading sectors by volume were: food processing, beverages and tobacco products; motor vehicles and auto parts; textiles and leather; 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 labor and forced labor 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 labor and/or forced labor comes from the agricultural sector.
Córdoba is Argentina's major industrial center, 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 (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(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 in 2009 totaled over 122 TWh (440 PJ), of which about 37% was consumed by industrial activities.
Transport
Argentina has the largest railway system in Latin America, with 36,966 km (22,970 mi) of operating lines in 2008, out of a full network of almost 48,000 km (29,826 mi). This system links all 23 provinces plus Buenos Aires City, and connects with all neighboring countries. There are four incompatible 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 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.
By 2004 Buenos Aires, all provincial capitals except Ushuaia, and all medium-sized towns were interconnected by 69,412 km (43,131 mi) of paved roads, out of a total road network of 231,374 km (143,769 mi). Most important cities are linked by a growing number of expressways, including Buenos Aires–La Plata, Rosario–Córdoba, Córdoba–Villa Carlos Paz, Villa Mercedes–Mendoza, National Route 14 General José Gervasio Artigas and Provincial Route 2 Juan Manuel Fangio, among others. Nevertheless, this road infrastructure is still inadequate and cannot handle the sharply growing demand caused by deterioration of the railway system.
In 2012 there were about 11,000 km (6,835 mi) of waterways, mostly comprising the La Plata, Paraná, Paraguay and Uruguay rivers, with Buenos Aires, Zárate, 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, 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 67 km (42 mi) of the Paraná river shore in Santa Fe province, it includes 17 ports and in 2013 accounted for 50% of all exports.
In 2013 there were 161 airports with paved runways out of more than a thousand. The Ezeiza International Airport, about 35 km (22 mi) from downtown Buenos Aires, is the largest in the country, followed by Cataratas del Iguazú in Misiones, and El Plumerillo in Mendoza. Aeroparque, in the city of Buenos Aires, is the most important domestic airport.
Media and communications
Print media industry is highly developed in Argentina, with more than two hundred newspapers. The major national ones include Clarín (centrist, Latin America's best-seller and the second most widely circulated in the Spanish-speaking world), La Nación (center-right, published since 1870), Página/12 (leftist, founded in 1987), the Buenos Aires Herald (Latin America's most prestigious English language daily, liberal, dating back to 1876), La Voz del Interior (center, founded in 1904), and the Argentinisches Tageblatt (German weekly, liberal, published since 1878)
Argentina began 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. By 2002 there were 260 AM and 1150 FM registered radio stations in the country.
The 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, as of 2014 totaling 87.4% of the country's households, a rate similar to those in the United States, Canada and Europe.
By 2011 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.
Science and technology
Argentines have three Nobel Prizes laureates in the Sciences. Bernardo Houssay, the first Latin American among them, discovered the role of pituitary hormones in regulating glucose in animals. César Milstein did extensive research in antibodies. Luis Leloir discovered how organisms store energy converting glucose into glycogen and the compounds which are fundamental in metabolizing carbohydrates. Argentine research has led to the treatment of heart diseases and several forms of cancer. Domingo Liotta designed and developed the first artificial heart successfully implanted in a human being in 1969. René Favaloro developed the techniques and performed the world's first ever 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 simply 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. In 1974 it was the first country in Latin America to put in-line a commercial 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, finished in 1983, a 30% and the 2011 Atucha II reactor a 40%.
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 Dr. 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. 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
Tourism
Tourism in Argentina is characterized by its cultural offerings and its ample and varied natural assets. The country had 5.57 million visitors in 2013, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the top destination in South America, and second in Latin America after Mexico. Revenues from international tourists reached US$4.41billion in 2013, down from US$4.89 billion in 2012. The country's capital city, Buenos Aires, is the most visited city in South America. There are 30 National Parks of Argentina including many World Heritage Sites.
Demographics
In the 2001 census [INDEC], Argentina had a population of 36,260,130, and preliminary results from the 2010 census were of 40,091,359 inhabitants. Argentina ranks third in South America in total population and 33rd globally. Population density is of 15 persons per square kilometer of land area, 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. The net migration rate has ranged from zero to four immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants per year.
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 and well above the world average, which is currently 7%. Argentina has one of Latin America's lowest population growth rates, recently about 1% a year, as well as a comparatively low infant mortality rate. Its birth rate of 2.3 children per woman is still nearly twice as high as that in Spain or Italy, compared here as they have similar religious practices and proportions. The median age is approximately 30 years and life expectancy at birth is 77.14 years.
Argentina became in 2010 the first country in Latin America and the second in the Americas to allow same-sex marriage nationwide. It was the tenth country to allow same-sex marriage.
Ethnography
As with other areas of new settlement such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Uruguay, Argentina is considered a country of immigrants.Argentines usually refer to the country as a crisol de razas (crucible of races, or melting pot).
Between 1857 and 1950 Argentina was the country with the second biggest immigration wave in the world, with 6.6 million, second only to the United States in the numbers of immigrants received (27 million) and ahead of such other areas of new settlement like Canada, Brazil and Australia.
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 immigration wave to Argentina (1850–1955),with a great majority of these immigrants coming from diverse European countries. The majority of these European immigrants came from Italy and Spain. The majority of Argentines descend from multiple European ethnic groups, primarily of Italian and Spanish descent (over 25 million individuals in Argentina, almost 60% of the population have some partial Italian origins), while 17% of the population also have partial French origins. There is also a sizeable number of Argentines of German descent.
Argentina is home to a significant population of Arab and partial Arab background, mostly of Syrian and Lebanese origin (in Argentina they are considered among the white people, just like in the United States Census). The majority of Arab Argentines are Christians who belong to the Maronite Church, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. A scant number are Muslims of Middle Eastern origins. The Asian population in the country numbers at around 180,000 individuals, most of whom are of Chinese and Korean descent, although an older Japanese community that traces back to the early 20th century still exists.
A study conducted on 218 individuals in 2010 by the Argentine geneticist Daniel Corach, has established that the genetic map of Argentina is composed by 79% from different European ethnicities (mainly Spanish and Italian ethnicities), 18% of different indigenous ethnicities, and 4.3% of African ethnic groups, in which 63.6% of the tested group had at least one ancestor who was Indigenous.
From the 1970s, immigration has mostly been coming from Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru, with smaller numbers from 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 official language is Spanish, spoken by almost all Argentines. The country is the largest Spanish-speaking society that universally employs voseo, the use of the pronoun vos instead of tú ("you"), which imposes the use of alternate verb forms as well. Due to the extensive Argentine geography, Spanish has a strong variation among regions, although the prevalent dialect is Rioplatense, primarily spoken in the La Plata Basin 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, by 1.5 million people.
- Arabic, specially its Northern Levantine dialect, by one million people.
- Standard German, by 400,000 people.
- Yiddish, by 200,000 people, the largest Jewish population in Latin America and 7th in the world.
- Guarani, by 200,000 people, mostly in Corrientes (where it is official de jure) and Misiones.
- Catalan, by 174,000 people.
- French, including the rare Occitan language.
- Quechua, by 65,000 people, mostly in the Northwest.
- Wichí, by 53,700 people, mainly in Chaco where, along with Kom and Moqoit, it is official de jure.
- Vlax Romani, by 52,000 people.
- Albanian, by 40.000 people.
- Japanese, by 32,000 people.
- Aymara, by 30,000 people, mostly in the Northwest.
- Ukrainian, by 27,000 people.
- Welsh, including its Patagonian dialect, in which 25,000 people are fluent. Some districts have recently incorporated it as an educational language.
Religion
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 CONICET poll, Argentines are 76.5% Catholic, 11.3% Agnostics and Atheists, 9% Evangelical Protestants, 1.2% Jehovah's Witnesses, 0.9% Mormons; while 1.2% follow other religions, including Islam, Judaism and Buddhism.
The country is home to both the largest Muslim and largest Jewish communities in Latin America, the latter being the 7th 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% of them claim to always attend religious services; 49.1%, to seldom do and 26.8%, to never do.
On 13 March 2013, Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, was elected Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church. He took the name "Francis", and he became the first Pope from either the Americas or from the Southern Hemisphere; he is the first Pope born outside of Europe since the election of Pope Gregory III (who was Syrian) in 741.
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 64.3 inhabitants per square kilometre (167/sq mi), Tucumán is the only Argentine province more densely populated than the world average; by contrast, the southern province of Santa Cruz has around 1.1/km (2.8/sq mi).
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. In 2010 the literacy rate was 98.07%.
- A secondary or high school mandatory level lasting 5 or 6 years. In 2010 38.5% of people over age 20 had completed secondary school.
- A higher level, divided in tertiary, university and post-graduate sub-levels. in 2013 there were 47 national public universities across the country, as well as 46 private ones. In 2010 7.1% of people over age 20 had graduated from university. The public universities of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, La Plata, 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.
Health care
Health care is provided through a combination of employer and labor 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 labor 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 nations). 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 maladies (non-infectious) from 7% to 11%, strokes a steady 7%, injuries, 6%, and 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.
The availability of health care has also reduced infant mortality from 70 per 1000 live births in 1948 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.
Culture
Argentina is a multicultural country with significant European influences. Modern Argentine culture has been largely influenced by Italian, Spanish and other European immigration from France, United Kingdom, and Germany 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. Museums, cinemas, and galleries are abundant in all the large urban centers, 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 Africaninfluences, 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 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' Martín Fierro and the elitist and cultured discourse of Sarmiento's masterpiece, Facundo.
The 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 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.
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 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 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.
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 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.
Tenor saxophonist Leandro "Gato" Barbieri and composer and big band conductor Lalo Schifrin are among the most internationally successful Argentine jazz musicians.
Theatre
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 in Buenos Aires. Teatro Colón is a global landmark for opera and classical performances; its acoustics are considered among the world's top five. Other important theatrical venues include Teatro General San Martín, Cervantes, both in Buenos Aires City; Argentino in La Plata, El Círculo in Rosario, Independencia in Mendoza, and Libertador in Córdoba. Griselda Gambaro, Copi, Roberto Cossa, Marco Denevi, Carlos Gorostiza, and Alberto Vaccarezza are a few of the most prominent Argentine playwrights.
Argentine theatre traces its origins to Viceroy Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo's creation of the colony's first theatre, La Ranchería, in 1783. In this stage, in 1786, a tragedy entitled Siripo had its premiere. Siripo is now a lost work (only the second act is conserved), and can be considered the first Argentine stage play, because it was written by Buenos Aires poet Manuel José de Lavardén, it was premiered in Buenos Aires, and its plot was inspired by an historical episode of the early colonization of the Río de la Plata Basin: the destruction of Sancti Spiritu colony by aboriginals in 1529. La Ranchería theatre operated until its destruction in a fire in 1792. The second theatre stage in Buenos Aires was Teatro Coliseo, opened in 1804 during the term of Viceroy Rafael de Sobremonte. It was the nation's longest-continuously operating stage. The musical creator of the Argentine National Anthem, Blas Parera, earned fame as a theatre score writer during the early 19th century. The genre suffered during the regime of Juan Manuel de Rosas, though it flourished alongside the economy later in the century. The national government gave Argentine theatre its initial impulse with the establishment of the Colón Theatre, in 1857, which hosted classical and operatic, as well as stage performances. Antonio Petalardo's successful 1871 gambit on the opening of the Teatro Opera, inspired others to fund the growing art in Argentina.
Cinema
La industria cinematográfica argentina ha sido históricamente una de las tres más desarrolladas en el cine latinoamericano, junto con las producidas en México y Brasil. Iniciado en 1896; a principios de la década de 1930 ya se había convertido en el principal productor cinematográfico de América Latina, un lugar que mantuvo hasta principios de la década de 1950. Las primeras películas animadas del mundo fueron hechas y lanzadas en Argentina, por el dibujante Quirino Cristiani, en 1917 y 1918.
Las películas argentinas han logrado el reconocimiento mundial: el país ha ganado dos Premios de la Academia a la Mejor Película en Lengua Extranjera, con The Official Story (1985) y The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) con siete nominaciones:
- La tregua ( La tregua ) en 1974
- Camila ( Camila ) en 1984
- La historia oficial ( La historia oficial ) en 1985
- Tango ( Tango ) en 1998
- Hijo de la novia ( El hijo de la novia ) en 2001
- El secreto de sus ojos ( El secreto de sus ojos ) en 2009
- Cuentos salvajes ( Relatos salvajes ) en 2015
Además, los compositores argentinos Luis Enrique Bacalov y Gustavo Santaolalla han sido galardonados con el Premio de la Academia a la Mejor Partitura Original en 2006 y 2007, y Armando Bo y Nicolás Giacobone han sido galardonados con el Premio de la Academia al Mejor Guión Original en 2015. Además, los argentinos franceses La actriz Bérénice Bejo recibió una nominación para el Premio de la Academia a la Mejor Actriz de Reparto en 2011 y ganó el Premio César a la Mejor Actres y ganó el premio a la Mejor Actriz en el Festival de Cine de Cannes por su papel en la película El pasado .
Argentina también ha ganado diecisiete Premios Goya a la Mejor Película Extranjera en Lengua Española con A King and His Movie (1986), A Place in the World (1992), Gatica, el mono (1993), Autumn Sun (1996), Ashes of Paradise ( 1997), The Lighthouse (1998), Burnt Money (2000), The Escape (2001), Intimate Stories (2003), Blessed by Fire (2005), The Hands (2006), XXY (2007), The Secret in Their Eyes (2009), Chinese Take-Away (2011), Wild Tales (2014), The Clan(2015) y The Distinguished Citizen (2016) siendo, con mucho, los más premiados en América Latina con veinticuatro nominaciones.
Muchas otras películas argentinas han sido aclamadas por la crítica internacional: Camila (1984), Man Facing Southeast (1986), A Place in the World (1992), Pizza, Beer y Cigarettes (1997), Nine Queens (2000), A Red Bear (2002), The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), The Aura (2005), Chinese Take-Away (2011) y Wild Tales (2014) fueron algunos de ellos.
En 2013, se crearon aproximadamente 100 largometrajes de cine al año.
Artes visuales
Algunos de los pintores argentinos más conocidos son Cándido López y Florencio Molina Campos (estilo Naïve); Ernesto de la Cárcova y Eduardo Sívori (realismo); Fernando Fader (Impresionismo); Pío Collivadino, Atilio Malinverno y Cesáreo Bernaldo de Quirós (Postimpresionismo); Emilio Pettoruti (cubismo); Julio Barragán (Concretismo y cubismo) Antonio Berni (Neofigurativismo); Roberto Aizenberg y Xul Solar (surrealismo); Gyula Košice (Constructivismo); Eduardo Mac Entyre (arte generativo); Luis Seoane, Carlos Torrallardona , Luis Aquino y Alfredo Gramajo Gutiérrez (Modernismo); Lucio Fontana (espacialismo); Tomás Maldonado y Guillermo Kuitca (Arte abstracto); León Ferrari y Marta Minujín (arte conceptual); y Gustavo Cabral (Arte de fantasía).
En 1946, Gyula Košice y otros crearon el Movimiento Madí en Argentina, que luego se extendió a Europa y Estados Unidos, donde tuvo un impacto significativo. Tomás Maldonado fue uno de los principales teóricos del modelo de Ulm de educación en diseño, que sigue teniendo una gran influencia a nivel mundial.
Otros artistas argentinos de fama mundial incluyen a Adolfo Bellocq, cuyas litografías han sido influyentes desde la década de 1920, y Benito Quinquela Martín, el pintor portuario por excelencia, inspirado por el barrio de La Boca ligado a los inmigrantes.
Los escultores internacionalmente galardonados Erminio Blotta, Lola Mora y Rogelio Yrurtia fueron autores de muchos de los monumentos clásicos evocadores del paisaje urbano argentino.
Arquitectura
La colonización trajo la arquitectura barroca española, que todavía se puede apreciar en su estilo Rioplatensemás simple en la reducción de San Ignacio Miní, la Catedral de Córdoba y el Cabildo de Luján. Las influencias italianas y francesas aumentaron a principios del siglo XIX con fuertes connotaciones eclécticas que le dieron a la arquitectura local una sensación única.
Numerosos arquitectos argentinos han enriquecido el paisaje urbano de su propio país y los de todo el mundo: Juan Antonio Buschiazzo ayudó a popularizar la arquitectura de Bellas Artes y Francisco Gianotti combinó el Art Nouveau con estilos italianos, cada uno añadiendo estilo a las ciudades argentinas a principios del siglo XX. Francisco Salamone y Viktor Sulčič dejaron un legado Art Deco y Alejandro Bustillo creó un cuerpo prolífico de arquitectura neoclásica y racionalista. Alberto Prebisch y Amancio Williams estuvieron muy influenciados por Le Corbusier, mientras que Clorindo Testa introdujo la arquitectura brutalista a nivel local. Las creaciones futuristas de César Pelli y Patricio Pouchulu han adornado las ciudades de todo el mundo: los éxitos de Pelli en la década de 1920 en la gloria Art Deco lo convirtieron en uno de los arquitectos más prestigiosos del mundo,
Deporte
Pato es el deporte nacional, un antiguo juego de caballos originado localmente a principios de 1600 y predecesor de horseball. El deporte mas popular es el futbol. Junto con Brasil y Francia, el equipo nacional masculino es el único que ha ganado el trío internacional más importante: Copa del Mundo, Copa Confederaciones y Medalla de Oro Olímpica. También ha ganado 14 Copas América, 6 Medallas de Oro Panamericanas y muchos otros trofeos. Alfredo Di Stéfano, Diego Maradona y Lionel Messi se encuentran entre los mejores jugadores en la historia del juego.
El equipo femenil de hockey sobre césped del país, Las Leonas , es uno de los más exitosos del mundo con cuatro medallas olímpicas, dos Copas Mundiales, una Liga Mundial y siete Trofeos de Campeones. Luciana Aymar es reconocida como la mejor jugadora femenina en la historia del deporte, siendo la única jugadora que ha recibido el Premio al Jugador FIJ del Año ocho veces.
El baloncesto es un deporte muy popular. La selección masculina es la única en la zona de FIBA Américas que ha ganado la corona de quintupletes: Campeonato Mundial, Medalla de Oro Olímpica, Bola de Diamante, Campeonato de las Américas y la Medalla de Oro Panamericana. También ha conquistado 13 campeonatos sudamericanos y muchos otros torneos. Manuel Ginóbili, Luis Scola, Andrés Nocioni, Fabricio Oberto, Pablo Prigioni, Carlos Delfino y Juan Ignacio Sánchez son algunos de los jugadores más aclamados del país, todos ellos parte de la NBA. Argentina fue sede de la Copa del Mundo de Baloncesto en 1950 y 1990.
El rugby es otro deporte popular en Argentina. A partir de 2017, el equipo nacional masculino, conocido como 'Los Pumas' ha competido en la Copa del Mundo de Rugby cada vez que se ha celebrado, logrando su mayor resultado en la historia en 2007, cuando llegaron en tercer lugar. Desde 2012, Los Pumas han competido contra Australia, Nueva Zelanda y Sudáfrica en el Campeonato de Rugby, la principal competencia internacional de Rugby en el Hemisferio Sur. Desde 2009, el equipo nacional masculino secundario conocido como 'Jaguares' compitió contra los primeros equipos de EE. UU., Canadá y Uruguay en el Campeonato de Rugby de América, que Los Jaguares ha ganado seis de las ocho veces que ha tenido lugar.
Argentina ha producido algunos de los campeones más formidables para el boxeo, incluido Carlos Monzón, el mejor mediano de la historia; Pascual Pérez, uno de los boxeadores de peso mosca más condecorados de todos los tiempos; Víctor Galíndez, a partir de 2009, poseedor del récord de defensas consecutivas del título de peso semipesado mundial y Nicolino Locche, apodado "El intocable" por su defensa magistral; todos son inducidos al Salón de la fama del boxeo internacional.
El tenis ha sido bastante popular entre las personas de todas las edades. Guillermo Vilas es el mejor jugador latinoamericano de la Era Abierta, mientras que Gabriela Sabatini es la jugadora argentina más talentosa de todos los tiempos: habiendo alcanzado el puesto # 3 en el Ranking WTA, ambas son admitidas en el Salón de la Fama del Tenis Internacional.
Argentina reina indiscutible en Polo, habiendo ganado más campeonatos internacionales que cualquier otro país y pocas veces ha sido derrotado desde la década de 1930. El Campeonato Argentino de Polo es el trofeo de equipo internacional más importante del deporte. El país es el hogar de la mayoría de los mejores jugadores del mundo, entre ellos Adolfo Cambiaso, el mejor en la historia del Polo.
Históricamente, Argentina ha tenido una gran presencia dentro de las carreras de autos. Juan Manuel Fangio fue cinco veces campeón mundial de Fórmula Uno bajo cuatro equipos diferentes, ganando 102 de sus 184 carreras internacionales, y está ampliamente clasificado como el mejor piloto de todos los tiempos. Otros corredores distinguidos fueron Oscar Alfredo Gálvez, Juan Gálvez, José Froilán González y Carlos Reutemann.
Cocina
Además de muchos de los platos de pasta, salchichas y postres comunes en Europa continental, los argentinos disfrutan de una amplia variedad de creaciones indígenas y criollas, que incluyen empanadas (una pequeña masa rellena), locro (una mezcla de maíz, frijoles, carne, tocino, cebolla, y calabaza), humita y mate .
El país tiene el mayor consumo de carne roja en el mundo, preparado tradicionalmente como asado , el asado argentino. Está hecho con varios tipos de carnes, que a menudo incluyen chorizo , mollejas, chinchulines y morcilla.
Los postres comunes incluyen facturas (pasteles de estilo vienés), pasteles y panqueques rellenos de dulce de leche , alfajores (galletas de mantequilla mezcladas con chocolate, dulce de leche o pasta de fruta) y tortas fritas ( tortas fritas)
El vino argentino, uno de los mejores del mundo, es una parte integral del menú local. Malbec, Torrontés, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah y Chardonnay son algunas de las variedades más buscadas.
símbolos nacionales
Algunos de los símbolos nacionales de Argentina están definidos por ley, mientras que otros son tradiciones que carecen de designación formal. La bandera de Argentina consta de tres franjas horizontales de igual ancho y coloreadas de azul claro, blanco y azul claro, con el Sol de mayo en el centro de la franja blanca central. La bandera fue diseñada por Manuel Belgrano en 1812; fue adoptado como un símbolo nacional el 20 de julio de 1816. El Escudo de Armas, que representa la unión de las provincias, entró en uso en 1813 como el sello para los documentos oficiales. El Himno Nacional Argentino fue escrito por Vicente López y Planes con música de Blas Parera, y fue adoptado en 1813. La escarapela nacional fue utilizada por primera vez durante la Revolución de Mayo de 1810 y se hizo oficial dos años más tarde. La Virgen de Luján es la santa patrona argentina.
El hornero , que vive en la mayor parte del territorio nacional, fue elegido como ave nacional en 1928 después de una encuesta escolar inferior. El ceibo es el emblema floral nacional y el árbol nacional, mientras que el quebracho colorado es el árbol forestal nacional. La rodocrosita es conocida como la piedra preciosa nacional. El deporte nacional es el pato , un juego ecuestre que fue popular entre los gauchos.
El vino argentino es el licor nacional, y el mate , la infusión nacional. Asado y locro son considerados los platos nacionales.
Obtenido de: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina