2. Geography
• Southern South America
bordering the South Atlantic
Ocean between Chile and
Uruguay.
• Total Area: 2,766,890 sq. km
• Borders Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
Paraguay and Uruguay.
• Climate – Mostly temperate;
arid southeast; subantarctic
in the southwest.
• Rich plains of the Pampas in
northern half, flat to rolling
plateau of Partagonia in the
south; rugged Andes along
western border.
3. GEOGRAPHY
Natural resources: Fertile of the Pampas, lead,
zinc, tin, cooper, iron ore, manganese,
petroleum and uranium.
Argentina is the second largest country in South
America (after Brazil); strategic location relative
to sea lanes between the South Atlantic and the
South Pacific Oceans (Strait of Magellan,
Beagle Channel, Drake Passage); Cerro
Aconcagua is South America’s tallest mountain,
while Laguna del Carbon is the lowest point in
the Western Hemisphere.
4. People
• Population mostly made up of immigrants from
Spain and Italy, who came in the late 19th century
and early 20th century.
• Argentinians are known as Portenos (people of
the port)
• Portenos are generally extroverted, sophisticated,
animated, yet their attitudes are tinged with
pessimism or fatalism about the direction of their
country.
• Other Latin Americans view Portenos as slightly
arrogant or snobbish.
5. PEOPLE
There is a minority of Germans, Britons, Ukrainians,
Czechs, Poles, Slovenes, Lithuanians, Middle
Easterns, Koreans, Japanese and Chinese.
Northern Argentina is predominately Mestizo (people
of mixed Indian and European ancestry).
Rioplatense Spanish is the dominant language.
Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion of
Portenos.
Lunfardo Argot originated in the prison population.
Uses words from Italian dialect, from Brazilian
Portuguese, from African and Caribbean language
and from English.
6. • The culture emphasizes the
Spanish and Catholic heritage.
• Some nationalist and populist
sectors see only the gaucho
tradition.
• Ultra-nationalist stress the Arabic
origins of gaucho culture.
• Conservative elite traced the
origins of the national culture to
the Roman catholic and Spanish
tradition.
• In the northwest, the influence of
Pre-Columbian Andean indigenous
7. • The tango refers to the music, the
lyrics, and the dance that
originated in the lower-class
neighborhoods of Buenos Aires
city.
• Dulce de leche and asado are
some of the most important meals
in the Argentine diet.
• Card games and table games also
express how Argentines
sometimes view themselves.
• They display flags when the
country is participating in world
soccer cup matches and in war
times.
• Argentina is know for its writers,
they also have an opera house, the
Teatro Colon, and dance theater.
• There are sixty art galleries in
Buenos Aires.
8. Received their Independence from Spain in 1816.
After WWII, Peronist Authoritarian rule and
interference in governments was followed by a
military junta that took power in 1976.
Democracy returned in 1983.
Seaman Juan Diaz de Solis, in the name of Spain,
was the first European to reach Rio de la Plata in
1516.
City of Buenos Aires was first established as Ciudad
de Nuestra Senora Santa Maria del Buen Ayre (City
of Our Lady Saint Mary of the Fair Winds)
History
9. Buenos Aires depended primarily on trade.
The capture of Porto Bello by the British
forces fueled the need to foster commerce
via the Atlantic route.
Buenos Aires has been Argentina’s main
venue for Liberal and free-trade ideas, and
advocated a more Catholic approach to
political and social issues.
Besides its fertile Pampas, railroad
construction in the second half of the 19th
century, increased the economic power of
Buenos Aires as raw material flowed into
its factories.
By 1920 Buenos Aires was a favored
destination for immigrants from Europe,
particularly Spain and Italy.
History
