Argentina
Argentina has a large population which comes mainly from Europe. It has around 32 million people, one-third of which live in Buenos Aires, the capital, which along with other urban areas makes up nearly ninety percent of the population. Most are of Italian and Spanish descent. The Spanish settled in the sixteenth century, the Italians came there with other European immigrants in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. People from western Europe make up less than ten percent of the population, while those from Eastern Europe make up around nine percent. The mestizos, which are mixed Indian and European people, make up most of the rest. Native Americans have almost been completely absorbed into the population. Blacks were taken in as slaves but now have almost disappeared. Freedom of worship is guaranteed by the constitution. More than ninety percent of the Argentine people identify themselves as Catholics, two percent as Protestants, and less than two percent as Jewish, although Argentina�s Jewish population is the largest in Latin America. The Roman Catholic church is recognized as the established church, but as of 1994 the president and vice-president are no longer obliged to belong to it. Anti Semitic writings have gone through Argentina. Acts against Jews haven�t amounted to much, but a good portion of the covert murder and torture perpetrated by the military regimes in the 1970�s were largely anti Semitic. Argentina�s main national holiday is on May 25, the anniversary of the 1810 Revolution. Its national anthem is Himno Nacional, with its opening line translating into �Hear, mortals, the sacred cry, �Liberty, liberty, liberty!�� It uses the peso as its currency, with one peso equaling one hundred centavos. Its political divisions consist of 22 provinces, one territory, and one federal district. Its capital is Buenos Aires, which is the most important city in the country.
Argentina is located in South America, and it borders the South Atlantic Ocean between Chile and Uruguay. It has a total land area of 2,736,690 square kilometers and a total area of 2,766,890 square kilometers, making it less than three-tenths the size of the United States. It is also the second largest country in South America (after Brazil), and it has a strategic position relative to the sea lanes between the South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans. It has a mostly temperate climate, but it is arid in the southeast and subantarctic in the southwest. Its terrains have rich plains in the north, flat to rolling plateaus in the south, and it is rugged in the Andes along the western border. It has six major geographical regions. Cuyo and the Andean Northwest are generally dry, although to the eastern edge of this region are fertile river valleys and subtropical lowlands. Mesopotamia and the Northeast consist of a flat plain which is wet, swampy, and extremely hot during the summer. The northern portion is more mountainous and has a dense forest containing a section of Iguazu Falls. The Chaco is shared by four different countries and contains grassland and forest areas. The Pampas are fertile plains that are Argentina�s breadbasket. They are humid along the sea and dry in the west and south. This region includes Buenos Aires, as well as many beaches. Pantagonia and the Lake District has a desert climate, but its cool grazing grounds house many flocks of sheep, fruit and vegetable farms, and reserves of oil and coal. Tierra del Fuego, or the Land of Fire, is an archipelago and has a climate similar to Patagonia�s plains. The mountainous area in the south is filled with forest and glaciers. Its climate is mild, but storms are frequent. Argentina has a very diverse climate.
The inhabitants of Argentina, like many other Spanish American republics, developed from aborigines, Spanish colonists, and African slaves. The earlier inhabitants were wandering tribes who had no permanent living centers and no literature. Early settlers came from the sea at Buenos Aires, over the Andes Mountains from Chile, and from Peru through the region which later became Bolivia. The official language of the people is Spanish, with Italian, French, English, German, and Portuguese being widely spoken. The Spanish which is spoken is distinctly Argentine, due to the fact that the language has evolved for over 350 years. Spanish Lunfardo, which developed in Buenos Aires before 1900, borrowed Italian and Portuguese words and has had a significant impact on the capital. Many people in Argentina are bilingual, and in the Buenos Aires area there are a dozen newspapers printed in languages other than Spanish. Native American languages are only spoken by one-tenth of the percent of the population, showing how the Native American culture has been largely absorbed into Argentina.
Argentina�s most abundant natural resources are the fertile plains of the Pampas, lead, zinc, tin, copper, iron ore, manganese, petroleum, and uranium. Meadows and pastures make up 52 percent of the land, forest and woodlands make up 22 percent, arable land makes up nine percent, permanent crops are four percent, and the rest makes up the remaining 13 percent. Argentina has some environmental issues, such as erosion resulting from inadequate flood controls and improper land use practices, irrigated soil degradation, air pollution in Buenos Aires and other major cities, water pollution in urban areas, and rivers becoming polluted due to pesticide and fertilizer use. Some natural hazards it has are that some areas in the Andes Mountains are subject to earthquakes, northeastern parts are subject to violent windstorms, and heavy flooding. Animals in the grasslands are the mammals of the guanaco (a wild ancestor of the llama), the viscucha (a rodent similar to the prairie dog), the zorrino (a hog-nosed skunk), the puma, the fox, the ferret, the chinchilla, the otter, the armadillo, and the vicuna. Birds are the ostrich-like chea, the sparrow hawk, the thrush, the lark, the robin, the duck, the goose, and many varieties of partridges and doves. Tropical areas include birds like the flamingo, heron, and parrots. Poisonous snakes are the coral snake, rattlesnakes, and the cruz snake. The locust is the most troublesome insect.
In Argentina, the population was clearly divided between residents of Buenos Aires and those living in rural sections and smaller towns. Before railroads developed, there actually was a war between those two groups. But, with the development of industry in smaller cities, the division slowly passed. Agriculture has been an important industry in Argentina. People who live in rural areas have the occupations of producing livestock, carpenters, merchants, small farmers, and schoolteachers. Large numbers of rural laborers have moved to the cities in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. They have also crowded into the slums of Buenos Aires. These people usually only have a part-time job. Industry has rapidly grown in the capital. According to Collier�s Encyclopedia, �In no other country but France do intellectuals exercise so great an influence. As university professors, writers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, scientists, poets, and editors, they have dominated the thinking of the nation.� The middle class is larger in Argentina than in any other Latin American country and is around 35 percent of the population. This is due to expansion, the establishment of more small businesses, and an increase in the number of professionals.
The most prominent group of people in Argentinean cultural life is the native gaucho. The culture of Argentina doesn�t show very much of the Indian culture which has a strong influence in Mexico and in the Andean countries of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. The Native Argentine culture started with the gaucho, a culture that lived a primitive life of isolation around other cultures, creating poems and songs about their deeds. This culture prospered between 1750 and 1850, yet it still remains a source of inspiration for Argentine literature, music, and art. For example, many songs and dances in Argentina are attributed to the gaucho. Carlos Vega cited 130 of these in one of his books but says his list is incomplete. He says that European music first started in Peru, then it was taken and absorbed into Argentina where it was passed to Europe. The most famous Argentine dance is the tango, which originated from a song of the slums in Buenos Aires. Carlos Gardel, whose records are still popular, was the most famous singer of tangos. With many Italian immigrants coming to Argentina, opera became very popular at the end of the nineteenth century. The Colon Theater in Buenos Aires was opened in 1908, becoming one of the world�s best opera houses. Now, it is one of 25 different commercial theaters. Buenos Aires still remains an important place for some of the world�s major international music events, many of which take place at the Colon Theater.
The gaucho culture made itself known widely in literature and art. Charles Gounod�s poem Fausto is one of the best-loved works in Argentine literature. But, the gaucho poem Marin Fierro, by Jose Hernandez, is considered to be the Argentine epic, establishing the national category in its literature. Argentina had two great philosophers, Alejandro Korn (an idealist), and Jose Ingenieros (a positivist). Among its modern literary figures who have an international reputation are Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, and Manuel Puig. The most prominent painter of the 19th century was Prilidiano Puyrredon, a realistic interpreter of gaucho life. Other contemporary painters are Emilio Pettoruti, Casareo Bernaldo de Quiros, and Miguel Ocampo. The best-known sculptor of Argentina was Rogelio Yrurtia, who exhibited many times in the United States and Europe. According to Collier�s Encyclopedia, �In journalism Argentina leads all Spanish-speaking countries, both in the quality and quantity of its output.� About 270 newspapers are published in the country.
Education has been drastically improved in Argentina. Illiteracy has been reduced from 78 percent of the population in 1869 to around 7 percent in the mid-70�s, where the level has stayed relatively constant. This is much better than Latin America�s average illiteracy rate of 24 percent. Education is now mandatory for students between 6 and 14 and is free from preschool to university level. The Roman Catholic Church does not have as much of a hold on education in Argentina as it does in other Latin American countries, although it is a strong factor in the national life. Argentina has 13 national universities for students to become better educated by. The most important museums in Argentina are the National Museum of Fine Arts, the National History Museum, the Natural Sciences Museum, the Isaac Fernando Blanco Museum of Spanish-American Art, the National Museum of Decorative Art, and the Museum of National History. All of these except the last are in Buenos Aires. The National Library in Buenos Aires has a collection of around 700,000 books and manuscripts. They have many different places in which to learn in Buenos Aires alone.
Bibliography
World Factbook. Argentina. {Online} Available http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/nsolo/factbook/ar-1.htm
Interknowledge Corporation. Argentina. {Online} Available http://www.interknowledge.com/argentina. �1996.
Collier�s Encyclopedia Volume 2. MacMillan Educational Company, New York. �1985. Argentina. pp. 565-582
Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Interactive, Inc. Argentina. �1997.