Buenos Aries

Buenos Aries

MKD & Associates

The capital of the country, Buenos Aires is also Argentina's leading city in population, commerce, and industry. It is located near the Atlantic Ocean coast, on the broad Río de la Plata, an estuary at the mouth of the Paraná and Paraguay rivers. The early Spanish colonists named the city for the "good winds" that brought them to the port. Today about 10 million people live in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, one of the largest in the world. The city proper makes up a federal district, and its mayor is appointed by the nation's president. The city is not a part of Buenos Aires province, which surrounds it.

The City--Its People and Commerce

Greater Buenos Aires is made up of many settlements that grew together. The oldest European center lay in the neighborhood of the present Plaza de Mayo, a large plaza in the downtown area. Streets in the city were laid out according to a grid pattern described in the Código de las Indias, a legal document followed by the Spaniards in settling the Western Hemisphere. The original grid is today surrounded by Balcarce, 25 de Mayo, Viamonte, Libertad, Salta, and Estados Unidos streets.

Growth of the city first followed the high elevations, along which ox- and horse-drawn two-wheeled carretas carried freight and which the modern main avenues and the rail lines also follow. The most recent developments in the city are the industrial sectors that extend from the old center southward, such as Dock Sud, La Bo...

Buenos Aries

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