Buenos Aires Province

Buenos Aires Province

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Buenos Aires Province

Buenos Aires Province (, Spanish: Provincia de Buenos Aires) is the most populated province of Argentina. The city of Buenos Aires, located next to provincial territory, is an autonomous city and not part of the province. The province has a population of 13,827,203 (2001) and its capital is La Plata (694,253 inhabitants), 56 kilometers south of the city of Buenos Aires.

Legislature of the Province of Buenos Aires, La Plata.

History
Geography
Climate
Economy
Tourism
Political division
See also
References
External links

History

Gov. Juan Manuel de Rosas; he ruled until 1852 with an iron fist and kept the fragile Argentine Confederacy under the tutelage of Buenos Aires Province.

Enactment of the Constitution of the Province, 1854. Secessionist pressure continued until 1880.

Dardo Rocha. Elected governor in 1880, he established the capital (La Plata) and helped politically integrate Buenos Aires into the nation.

Gov. Oscar Alende, whose 1958-62 term was distinguished by its many public works.

The inhabitants of the province before the 16th century advent of Spanish colonisation were aboriginal peoples such as the Charruas and the Querandíes; but their culture has been lost for, over the next 350 years, they were subjected to a virtual genocide from which few survived. The survivors joined other tribes or have been mostly absorbed by Argentina's European majority.

Pedro de Mendoza founded Santa María del Buen Ayre in 1536 and even though the first contact with the aboriginals was peaceful, it soon became hostile. The city was evacuated in 1541. Juan de Garay re-founded it in 1580 as Santísima Trinidad y Puerto Santa María de los Buenos Aires.

Amidst ongoing conflict with the aboriginals, the cattle farms extended from Buenos Aires, whose port was always the centre of the economy of the territory. Following the creation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata at the end of the 18th century, the export of meat, leather and their derivatives through the port of Buenos Aires was the basis of the economic development of the region.

Jesuits unsuccessfully tried to peacefully assimilate the aboriginals into the European culture brought by the Spanish conquistadores. A certain balance was found at the end of the 18th century, when the Salado River became the limit between both civilizations, even though the frequent malones aboriginal attacks to border settlements. The end to such situation came as late as 1879 with the Conquest of the Desert (Conquista del Desierto) in which the aboriginals where almost completely exterminated.

After the independence from Spain in 1816, the city and province of Buenos Aires were allied in constant confrontation with the other provinces because of the federal system so controlled by Buenos Aires. The 1859 Pact of San Jose de Flores defeated secessionist aspirations per se; but, intermittent conflict with the nation did not truly cease until 1880, when the city of Buenos Aires was formally federalized and, thus, separated from the province itself.

La Plata was founded in 1882 with the purpose of becoming the province's capital and by that time, the province had around half a million inhabitants (about a quarter of Argentina's). Nearly a billion (1880s) dollars of British investment and pro-development, education and immigration policies pursued at the national level soon brought dramatic economic growth, however; like Argentina's, the province's population nearly doubled by 1895 and doubled again (to 2 million) by 1914.^[1] Likewise, by then, rail lines connected nearly every town and hamlet in the province; indeed, many developed around the new railway stations, themselves. This era of accelerated development was cut short by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which, of course, led to a sharp drop in commodity prices (99% of Argentine exports were, at the time, agricultural in nature) and a halt to the flow of investment funds between nations. Not unlike U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, Argentina's leaders began pursuing ambitious lending and public works programs, visible in Buenos Aires Province through the panoply of levees, power plants, water works, paved roads, municipal buildings and (particularly during Pres. Juan Peron's 1946-55 term) schools, clinics and massive regional hospitals.

Vice Gov. Alberto Balestrini, former Pres. Nestor Kirchner and Gov. Daniel Scioli, 2007. All three have also pursued a vigorous public works policy.

The province's population, after 1930, began to grow disproportionately quickly in the suburban areas around the city of Buenos Aires. These suburbs had grown to include 4 million out of the province's total 7 million people in 1960.^[1] Much of the area these new suburbs were developed on, however, (particularly the poorer ones) consisted of wetlands and were prone to flooding. To address this, Gov. Oscar Alende initiated the province's most important flood-control project to this day, the Roggero Reservoir. Completed a decade later, in 1971, the reservoir and associated electric and water-treatment facilities encouraged still more--and more orderly--development of the Greater Buenos Aires region, which today includes around 10 million people (2/3 of the province's); but, it did not address worsening pollution resulting from the area's industrial growth, which had made itself evident since around 1920. This problem has been worst along the Reconquista River west and north of the city of Buenos Aires; over 4 million people (One in 10 Argentines) today live on the Reconquista's basin.^[2] Of these, about a million still live with seriously compromised water quality, despite the province's numerous (sometimes counterproductive) efforts to remedy the issue.^[3] In a nutshell, this is part of the paradox of the Province of Buenos Aires, today. Vast and immensely productive both agriculturally and industrially, its economy nevertheless strains to provide for its 15 million people (in Greater Buenos Aires, particularly).

Geography

The Buenos Aires province has an area of 307,571 km² and its neighbouring provinces clockwise from the southwest are Rio Negro, La Pampa, Córdoba, Santa Fe and Entre Rios. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean. It is also the largest province of Argentina. The landscape is mainly flat, with two low mountain ranges; Sierra de la Ventana (near Bahía Blanca) and Sierra de Tandil (Tandil). The highest point is Cerro Tres Picos (1.239 m amsl; 38° 8' S, 61° 58' W) and the longest river is Río Salado (700 km).

As part of The Pampas the weather of the province is strongly influenced by the ocean, with hot summers and temperate winters. Humidity is high and precipitations are abundant and distributed over the year. The Western and Southwestern regions are dryer.

Climate

The weather of the Buenos Aires Province is temperate with average temperatures between 13 and 17 °C. At the coast, the wind from sea cools down the nights during the summer and keeps a high humidity during the winters.

Precipitations vary from 500 mm to 1,000 mm per year on the coast, and due to the flatness of the terrain can produce flooding.

The geography of the province is crossed by occasional west Pampero winds. The southern Sudestada produces storms and temperature drops, most notably the Santa Rosa stormhttp://www.monte.gov.ar/planificacion/informacionutil1/climatolofia/santarosa.htm, which takes place every year almost exactly on August 30.

Economy

Railway Museum of the Province, Avellaneda.

The province's economy has long been the largest in Argentina, estimated in 2006 to have been US$107.6 billion (a third of the national total). Its per capita income of US$7,780, though, was somewhat below the national average^[4] and even accounting for the much lower local cost of living, this was still probably a fourth of that in the United States.^[5]

Agriculture in the province is renowned around the world for its productivity, though the sector adds about 5% to the province's total economy, among the most diverse in Argentina.^[6] The province's agriculture did however, bring in at least US$6 billion in export earnings in 2006^[7] and is itself quite diverse; though cattle historically provided the main animal husbandry activity, Buenos Aires is also the top producer of sheep, pork, and chicken meat of the country. Equally important is the Dairy industry. Crop harvests, of course, have become even more important in recent decades. The most important crops include soybean, maize, wheat, sunflower and other oilseeds, like flax. More recently, high quality Buenos Aires wines are being produced at the south of the province.

Manufacturing accounts for a fourth of the province's output and is about 40% of the entire nation's.^[6] The industry of the province is diverse: chemical, pharmaceutical, metallurgic, motor vehicles, machinery, textiles and the food industry are the most notable. Excluding processed agricultural items, the province was responsible for over US$10 billion of industrial exports in 2006.^[7]

The province's services sector is well-diversified and differs little from national trends.

Tourism

Mar del Plata.

Tourists, mainly from Buenos Aires, visit the Atlantic coast. There are many cities and town along the coast line that starts some 250 kilometres from Buenos Aires after the Samborombón Bay. Among them, the biggest and most important is Mar del Plata, followed by Pinamar, Villa Gesell, Miramar and Necochea.

Other destinations include the Sierras of Tandil, Tigre and the many islands of the Río de la Plata delta, Isla Martín García, the Chascomús Lagoon, and the La Plata city.

Lately agritourism in estancias ranches has become somewhat popular for foreigners visiting the province.