Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital city of Argentina.

It is a very big city beside a wide river. People who live here are called porteños, the port people.

Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina, in South America. It sits on the shore of the Río de la Plata, a huge estuary where rivers meet the sea, 240 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean. Behind it stretch the Pampas, flat grasslands that are Argentina's main farming region.

About 3.1 million people lived in the city in 2022, and more than 17.5 million in Greater Buenos Aires. People from Buenos Aires are called porteños, "people of the port," because so many of their families arrived by ship from Europe. The city is known for its wide avenues, its many neighborhoods with their own cafés and soccer teams, and the tango.

Buenos Aires lies at the northeastern edge of the Pampas, where the Paraná delta widens into the Río de la Plata estuary, 240 km from the Atlantic. The city proper, coextensive with the federal district, covers 203 km² and had 3,121,707 people in the 2022 census; Greater Buenos Aires, about 3,885 km², had 17,523,996. It is Argentina's center of commerce, industry, politics, culture and technology and, Britannica notes, the chief port of the country and the largest in South America.

The poet Ezequiel Martínez Estrada called it 'the Head of Goliath', a giant head on a frail body, for the way its wealth and influence overshadow the rest of the country. Britannica describes a grand city of wide avenues, more European than Latin American in character, with little colonial architecture; it is chiefly a city of distinct neighborhoods (barrios), each with its own coffeehouses or bars, a tradition going back to the colonial pulpería, a general store and bar.

In the middle of Buenos Aires is a big square called the Plaza de Mayo.

On one side is a pink building where the government works. A tall white tower, the Obelisk, stands on a giant wide street. In La Boca, the houses are painted bright colors.

The city grew outward from the Plaza de Mayo, a historic square. At one end is the Casa Rosada, the "Pink House," where Argentina's government works; at the other is the old Cabildo, the colonial town hall. A broad avenue leads from the square to the National Congress.

Avenida 9 de Julio is called the widest avenue in the world, and an obelisk from 1936 stands in its middle. The Colón Theatre, opened in 1908, is a magnificent opera house where famous opera stars perform. In La Boca, where the first settlers landed, streets like the Caminito are lined with wooden houses painted in bright colors.

The modern city grew outward from the Plaza de Mayo, with the 18th-century Cabildo at its west end and the Casa Rosada at its east; the colonial Metropolitan Cathedral and the Central Bank also face the square, and the Pyramid of May (1811) at its center marks the first anniversary of the May 1810 revolution. Avenida de Mayo leads west to the National Congress, opposite the small square from which all distances on national highways are measured.

The obelisk of 1936, at the crossing of Avenida 9 de Julio and Avenida Corrientes, records four events on its four sides: the founding in 1536, the permanent settlement in 1580, the first raising of the Argentine flag on that spot in 1812, and the creation of the federal district there in 1880. The Colón Theatre (1908) hosts the national ballet and symphony. In La Boca, the Caminito's brightly painted wooden houses recall the first settlers and the 19th-century meat-salting plants; in Puerto Madero, former warehouses have become a smart district crossed by Santiago Calatrava's 102 m Puente de la Mujer.

In Buenos Aires, summer comes in December and January!

That is because the city is south of the equator. Summers are hot and sticky. Winters are mild, and snow almost never falls.

Buenos Aires is south of the equator, so its seasons are the opposite of North America's and Europe's. Summer, from December to March, is hot and humid: in January, highs average about 30 °C and lows about 20 °C. Winter, from June to September, is mild but damp, with July highs around 15 °C and lows around 7 °C.

Frosts can happen from May to September, but snow is extremely rare. About 1,140 millimeters of rain fall in a year, the most in March. Spring and autumn bring changeable weather, and thunderstorms are common between September and March.

Britannica describes the temperate climate of the Río de la Plata's coastal plain: hot, humid summers from December to March, mild but humid winters from June to September, fluctuating weather in spring and autumn, and an average annual temperature of about 16 °C. Frosts occur from May to September, but snowfall is extremely rare; winds are generally light and more frequent during the season of electrical storms, September to March.

World Meteorological Organization normals (1981–2010) give a January mean daily maximum of 30.1 °C and minimum of 20.1 °C, and a July maximum of 15.3 °C and minimum of 7.4 °C. Rainfall is spread through the year but peaks in March (about 140 mm); Britannica gives an annual average of about 1,140 mm.