Profile of Buenos Aires

Porteños, as the inhabitants of Buenos Aires are known, are justly proud of having synthesized a common culture from such disparate ingredients.

Founding and settlement

Pedro de Mendoza established the first settlement in 1536. Many historians believe he planted the Spanish flag in what is now Parque Lezama, in San Telmo. After five precarious years, Mendoza and crew moved upriver to found Asunción, Paraguay. They left two important legacies: the city’s name, Nuestra Señora de Santa María del Buen Ayre, and hundreds of horses and cows that escaped into the pampas.

In 1586, Juan de Garay, from Asunción, Paraguay, returned with 70 men and established a permanent settlement. A fortress was built facing the river, and the town square, later to be known as Plaza de Mayo, was marked off to the west. 

Buenos Aires was the last major city to be founded in Latin America. Not only was it geographically cut off from more developed trade routes but Spanish law prohibited the use of its ports for both the import of European goods and the export of precious metals from Potosí and Lima. The English, Portuguese, and French were quick to exploit this vacuum, and the illegal trade carried out with the connivance of these powers enabled the settlement to survive, if not to flourish. 

Independence and development

Buenos Aires’ transition from colonial backwater to regional power began in 1776, when Spain made it the capital of the new Viceroyalty of the River Plate. Lawyers, bureaucrats and soldiers were needed to execute the city’s administrative responsibilities; they came. Slaves were needed to do everything else; they were shipped in. Buenos Aires experienced its first boom and within a few years was being talked about in the same breath as Lima and Mexico City.

A changing city

The 1880s saw the beginning of mass immigration from Europe, principally from Italy and Spain but also from Germany, Poland, Britain, Lebanon and Syria, and later Russia. By 1910 the city had 1.3 million inhabitants who enjoyed public services such as the tramway, running water, schools, and police protection.

As the 20th century progressed, new architecture reflected both home-grown political and cultural movements and the influence of European and North American Modernism. Many buildings from the Peronist 1940s and 1950s are none-too-subtle expressions of state supremacy, while skyscraper blocks of apartment buildings dot the landscape from the following decades.

Nowadays, the shimmering skyscrapers of Puerto Madero house some of the priciest real estate on the continent, while less affluent citizens can take advantage of the city's growing cycle-lane network. Barrios like San Telmo and, most notably, Palermo Viejo have been transformed by a wave of enthusiastic retailers and restaurateurs with a taste for edgy fashions and global cuisine respectively.

More than most cities, Buenos Aires has resisted the siren calls of globalization and retail consolidation, with the result that independent, family-owned stores remain an important presence on many streets.

See our highlights of what to see in Buenos Aires...