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Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southern shore of the Rio de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent.

After the internal conflicts of the 19th century, Buenos Aires was federalised and removed from Buenos Aires Province in 1880; its city limits were enlarged to include the former towns of Belgrano and Flores; both are now neighbourhoods in the city.

Buenos Aires (meaning in English - Fair Winds) was originally named after the sanctuary of Nostra Signora di Bonaria (Italian for "Our Lady of Good Air", also known in Spanish as "Virgine de Bonaria") located in Cagliari, Sardinia.

Argentines sometimes refer to the city as Capital Federal to differentiate the city from the province of the same name. In the 1994 constitution, the city was given autonomy, hence its formal name: Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires.

The abbreviations Bs. As., Baires and B.A. are sometimes used, the first one mostly in writing and the latter two in everyday speech. The city is sometimes called La Reina del Plata, that is, "The Queen of the Plata" (a reference to the Plata river basin).

The city is divided into 48 barrios (neighbourhoods) for administrative purposes. The division was originally based on Catholic parroquias (parishes), but has undergone a series of changes since the 1940s. A newer scheme has divided the city into 15 comunas (communes).[

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CLIMATE OF BUENOS AIRES

The city has a temperate climate with average temperatures in the afternoon ranging from 29oC in January to 14oC in July. Rain can be expected at any time of year. The last Snowfall was on July 9, 2007. Hailstorms are not a strange phenomenon.

Many locals leave Buenos Aires during the hot summer months (December, January and February) and head for seaside resorts on the Atlantic coast.

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ECONOMY OF BUENOS AIRES

Buenos Aires is the financial, industrial, commercial, and cultural hub of Argentina. Its port is one of the busiest in the world. Tax collection related to it has caused many political problems in the past; navigable rivers by way of the Rio de la Plata connect the port to north-east Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. As a result, it serves as the distribution hub for a vast area of the south-eastern region of the South American continent. Buenos Aires is one of the wealthiest cities in Latin America behind Mexico City.

To the west of Buenos Aires is the Pampa Humeda, the most productive agricultural region of Argentina (as opposed to the dry southern Pampa, mostly used for cattle farming). Meat, dairy, grain, tobacco, wool and hide products are processed or manufactured in the Buenos Aires area. Other leading industries are automobile manufacturing, oil refining, metalworking, machine building, and the production of textiles, chemicals, clothing, and beverages.

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CULTURE OF BUENOS AIRES

Strongly influenced by European culture, Buenos Aires is sometimes referred to as the "Paris of South America".

Buenos Aires is the site of the Teatro Colon, one of the world's greatest opera houses. There are several symphony orchestras and choral societies. The city has numerous museums related to history, fine arts, modern arts, decorative arts, popular arts, sacred art, arts and crafts, theatre and popular music, as well as the preserved homes of noted art collectors, writers, composers and artists.

Buenos Aires harbours many public libraries and cultural associations as well as the largest concentration of active theatres in Latin America. It has a world-famous zoo and Botanical Garden, a large number of landscaped parks and squares, as well as churches and places of worship of many denominations, many of which are architecturally noteworthy.

Buenos Aires architecture is quite different from the rest of Latin America. It is strongly influenced by European styles with more than the half of the city buildings being French style.

Tango music was born in the suburbs, notably in the brothels of the JunIn y Lavalle district and in the arrabales (poorer suburbs). Its sensual dance moves were not seen as respectable until adopted by the Parisian high society in the 1920s, and then all over the world. In Buenos Aires, tango-dancing schools (known as academias) were usually men-only establishments.

The city has many museums, historical buildings, shopping centres, and hotels. The main tourist attractions are around the downtown area, including Plaza de Mayo, Florida Street, San Telmo and Puerto Madero.

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SPORTS IN BUENOS AIRES

Football (soccer) is a passion for Argentines. Buenos Aires has the highest concentration of football teams of any city in the world (featuring no less than 24 professional football teams), with many of its teams playing in the major league. The best-known rivalry is the one between Boca Juniors and River Plate; a match between these two teams was named as one of the "50 sporting things you must do before you die" by The Observer. Other major clubs include San Lorenzo de Almagro, Vélez Sarsfield and Huracan.

Diego Armando Maradona, born in Villa Fiorito, a villa miseria in the Lomas de Zamora Partido (then part of Lanus Partido) of Greater Buenos Aires, is widely hailed as one of the greatest football players of all time. Maradona started his career with Argentinos Juniors, later playing for Boca Juniors, the Argentina national football team and others (most notably FC Barcelona in Spain and SSC Napoli in Italy).

Buenos Aires has been a candidate city for the Summer Olympic Games on three occasions: for the 1956 Games, lost by a single vote to Melbourne; for the 1968 Summer Olympics, which were held in Mexico City (to this date, the only Games held in Latin America); and in 2004, when the games were awarded to Athens.

However, Buenos Aires hosted the 1951 Pan American Games - the first, and was also host city to several World Championship events: the 1950 and 1990 Basketball World Championships, the 1982 and 2002 Men's Volleyball World Championships and, most remembered, the 1978 FIFA World Cup, won by Argentina on June 25, 1978 when it defeated the Netherlands by 3-1.

The Buenos Aires Oscar Galvez car-racing track hosted 20 editions of the Formula One Argentine Grand Prix between 1953 and 1998; its discontinuation was due to financial reasons. The track features local categories on most weekends.

Argentines' love for horses can be experienced in several ways: horse racing at the Hipodromo Argentino de Palermo racetrack, polo in the Campo Argentino de Polo (located just across Libertador Avenue from the Hipodromo), and pato, a kind of basketball played on horseback that was declared the national game in 1953.

Buenos Aires native Guillermo Vilas (who was raised in Mar del Plata) was one of the great tennis players of the 1970s and 1980s, and popularized tennis in all of Argentina.

Other popular sports in Buenos Aires are golf, basketball, rugby, and field hockey.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encycopedia

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