Buenos Aires

Pedro de Mendoza founded the first Buenos Aires in 1536, on ground that is now San Telmo, but attacks by the Indigenous peoples of the area forced its abandonment within a few years. Juan de Garay, sailing down the Paraná from Asunción, refounded the city on 11 June 1580 and kept Mendoza's name. For two centuries it was a modest port, barred by Spanish rules from trading openly with Europe and with a thriving contraband trade, until in 1776 it became capital of the new Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.

Its militias drove off British invasions in 1806 and 1807, and the May Revolution of 1810 began in the Cabildo on what is now Plaza de Mayo. After long conflict with the provinces, the city was made the federal capital in 1880. A yellow fever epidemic in 1871 had already sent wealthy families north from San Telmo towards Recoleta, and their old houses became crowded conventillos for the immigrants who poured in from Italy and Spain. Grain and beef exports paid for Parisian-style avenues, the Teatro Colón and the Subte, and by the early 20th century it ranked itself alongside the capitals of Europe.

The 20th century made Plaza de Mayo the stage of national politics: the workers' march for Perón in October 1945, the bombing of the square in 1955, and the Thursday marches of the Madres for the disappeared from 1977. The 2001 economic collapse brought crowds banging pots to the same square. A 1994 reform gave the city autonomy and an elected head of government; Jorge Macri took the office in December 2023.

Porteños — people of the port — are known across Latin America for their accent, their speed of talk, their humour and their love of argument. Tango grew up in the river barrios at the end of the 19th century among immigrants and the urban poor, and in 2009 UNESCO added it to its list of intangible cultural heritage, in a joint nomination with Uruguay. It survives both as a stage show for visitors and as a living social dance in the milongas, where couples dance into the early hours.

The city reads and argues. It has a famous density of bookshops, was UNESCO's World Book Capital in 2011, and has the largest concentration of theatres in Latin America along and around Avenida Corrientes. In 2005 it was named a UNESCO City of Design. Its cafés are institutions, and the city protects dozens of the oldest as cafés notables. Filete porteño, the curling painted lettering of shop signs and old buses, is another local art.

Football divides the city among dozens of clubs, above all Boca Juniors of La Boca and River Plate of Núñez, and the Superclásico between them brings the city to a stop. The Catholic Church remains part of public life — Jorge Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis, was archbishop here — but the city is largely secular, with one of the largest Jewish communities in the Americas. Memory of the dictatorship is everywhere, from the Madres' headscarves painted on the paving of Plaza de Mayo to the former detention centres turned into museums.

About 3.1 million people lived in the autonomous city at the 2022 census, and the urban area around it — Greater Buenos Aires and its sprawling conurbano — holds roughly 16.7 million, making it one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. Most porteños live in apartment blocks; the north of the city, from Recoleta through Palermo and Belgrano, is the most comfortable, while the south is poorer and the informal settlements, the villas, stand at the city's edges.

The city lives on services: government, finance, media, the port, tourism, universities and a large creative industry. Inflation and prices dominate conversation, people keep savings in US dollars when they can, and protests and strikes are a routine part of life — in April 2024 thousands marched to demand more university funding from President Javier Milei's government.

The day runs late. Offices fill by nine, the afternoon break brings coffee and medialunas, and dinner is rarely before nine or ten, with clubs filling after two in the morning. Weekends belong to the asado, football and the parks, and in January much of the city leaves for the Atlantic coast.

Beef is at the centre of the table, and the parrilla — the grill restaurant — is the city's defining place to eat: bife de chorizo (sirloin strip), vacío (flank), entraña (skirt steak), morcilla (blood sausage) and mollejas (sweetbreads), cooked over wood or charcoal and served with chimichurri. The choripán, a grilled chorizo in bread, is sold from stalls outside football grounds and along the riverside, and provoleta is provolone cheese grilled until it melts.

The Italian inheritance is just as strong. The pizzerias of Avenida Corrientes serve thick pizza de molde, fugazzeta stuffed with cheese and topped with onion, and fainá, a chickpea flatbread laid on top of a slice. Fresh pasta houses sell sorrentinos and ravioli, and ñoquis are traditionally eaten on the 29th of the month. Bodegones, old-fashioned neighbourhood canteens, serve milanesas, tortillas and large plates to share.

Bakeries sell facturas, the pastries eaten with coffee or mate, and medialunas, small sweet croissants; alfajores, biscuits sandwiched with dulce de leche, are everywhere. Heladerías serve Italian-style ice cream late into the night, with dulce de leche the favourite flavour. Vermouth has come back into fashion in the city's bars, Fernet with cola is drunk everywhere, and Malbec is the default red.