Argentina
- For alternative meanings, see Argentina (disambiguation) and Argentine (disambiguation).
| Argentine Republic[1]
República Argentina (Spanish)
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| Motto: En unión y libertad (Spanish) In Unity and Freedom |
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| Anthem: Himno Nacional Argentino (Spanish) Argentine National Anthem  |
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 The Argentine claims in Antarctica (overlapping the Chilean and British Antarctic claims) along with the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands (administered by the United Kingdom) shown in light green. |
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| Capital (and largest city) |
Buenos Aires 34°36′S 58°23′W / 34.6°S 58.383°W |
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| Official language(s) | Spanish (de facto) | |||||
| Ethnic groups (2005[2][3]) | 86.4% European 8.5% Mestizo 3.3% Arab 1.6% Amerindian 0.4% Asian and others |
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| Demonym | Argentine, Argentinian, Argentinean | |||||
| Government | Federal representative presidential republic | |||||
| - | President | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner | ||||
| - | Vice President and President of the Senate | Amado Boudou |
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| - | Supreme Court President | Ricardo Lorenzetti | ||||
| Legislature | Congress | |||||
| - | Upper House | Senate | ||||
| - | Lower House | Chamber of Deputies | ||||
| Independence | from Spain | |||||
| - | May Revolution | 25 May 1810 | ||||
| - | Declared | 9 July 1816 | ||||
| - | Current constitution | 1 May 1853 | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 2,791,810 km2 [4](8th) 1,068,302 sq mi |
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| - | Water (%) | 1.1 | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | 2010 census | 40,117,096[5] (32nd) | ||||
| - | Density | 14.49/km2 (207th) 37.53/sq mi |
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| GDP (PPP) | 2011 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $710.7 billion[6] (22nd) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $17,376[6] (51st) | ||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2011 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $435.2 billion[6] (27th) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $10,640[6] (62nd) | ||||
| Gini (2009) | 0.458[7] (high) | |||||
| HDI (2011) |  0.797[8] (very high) (45th) |
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| Currency | Peso ($) (ARS) |
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| Time zone | ART (UTC−3) | |||||
| Date formats | dd.mm.yyyy (CE) | |||||
| Drives on the | right (trains ride on the left) | |||||
| ISO 3166 code | AR | |||||
| Internet TLD | .ar | |||||
| Calling code | +54 | |||||
Argentina 
i/ˌɑrdʒənˈtiːnə/, officially the Argentine Republic (Spanish: República Argentina [reˈpuβlika arxenˈtina]), is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth-largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations.
Argentina's continental area is between the Andes mountain range in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. It borders Paraguay and Bolivia to the north, Brazil and Uruguay to the northeast, and Chile to the west and south. Argentine claims over Antarctica, as well as overlapping claims made by Chile and the United Kingdom, are suspended by the Antarctic Treaty of 1961. Argentina also claims the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the United Kingdom as British Overseas Territories.
A recognised middle power,[9] Argentina is Latin America's third-largest economy,[10] with a very high rating on the Human development index.[8] Within Latin America, Argentina has the fifth highest nominal GDP per capita and the highest in purchasing power terms.[11] Analysts[12] have argued that the country has a foundation for future growth due to its market size, levels of foreign direct investment, and percentage of high-tech exports as share of total manufactured goods, and it is classed by investors as an emerging economy. Argentina is a founding member of the United Nations, Mercosur, the Union of South American Nations, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the World Bank Group and the World Trade Organization, and is one of the G-15 and G-20 major economies.
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Etymology
Argentina is derived from the poetic Spanish argento (silver). The first use of Argentina can be traced to the 1602 poem La Argentina y conquista del Río de la Plata (Argentina and the conquest of the silver river) by Martín del Barco Centenera. Although this name for the La Plata Basin was already in common usage by the 18th century, the area was formally called Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776. The autonomous governments that emerged from the 1810 May Revolution replaced Viceroyalty with United Provinces.[4]
One of the first prominent uses of the demonym Argentine was in the 1812 first Argentine National Anthem, which made reference to the ongoing Argentine War of Independence. The first formal use of the name was in the 1826 constitution, which used both the terms Argentine Republic and Argentine Nation.[13] The Constitution was repealed, and the territories were instead known as the Argentine Confederation. This name was used in the 1853 Constitution, being changed to that of the Argentine Nation in 1859, and to the Argentine Republic per an 1860 decree, when the country achieved its current organization. Nevertheless, the names of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, Argentine Republic and Argentine Confederation are acknowledged as legitimate names of the country.[1][4]
History
Early history
The earliest evidence of humans in Argentina dates from 11,000 BC and was found in Patagonia (Piedra Museo, Santa Cruz). These finds were of the Diaguitas, Huarpes, and Sanavirones indigenous peoples, among others. The Inca Empire, under Sapa-Inca Pachacutec, invaded and conquered present-day north-western Argentina in 1480, a feat usually attributed to Túpac Inca Yupanqui. The tribes of Omaguacas, Atacamas, Huarpes and Diaguitas were defeated and integrated into a region called Collasuyu. Others, such as the Sanavirones, Lule-Tonocoté, and Comechingones, resisted the Incas and remained independent from them. The Guaraní developed a culture based on yuca, sweet potato, and yerba mate. The central and southern areas (Pampas and Patagonia) were dominated by nomadic cultures, the most populous among them being the Mapuches.[14] The Atacaman settlement of Tastil in the north had an estimated population of 2,000 people, the highest populated area in pre-Columbian Argentina.
The most advanced indigenous populations were the Charrúas and Guaraníes, who developed some basic agriculture and the use of pottery. Most of their population was located in other South American sites, however, and their presence in the territory of modern Argentina was scarce by comparison.[15]
Colonial period
The first European explorer, Juan Díaz de Solís, arrived to the Río de la Plata in 1516. Spain established the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1542, encompassing all its holdings in South America. Their first settlement in modern Argentina was the fort of Sancti Spiritu, established in 1527 next to the Paraná River. Buenos Aires, a permanent colony, was established in 1536 but was destroyed by natives. The city was established again in 1580. The colonization of modern Argentina came from 3 different directions: from Paraguay, establishing the Governorate of the Río de la Plata, from Peru and from Chile.[16]
The Spanish society in the Americas was organized in a system of castas. The European-born Spanish peninsulars were at the top of the social hierachy, as were the people from other European countries. The Spanish born in the Americas were known as criollos. Most natives stayed away from the Spanish cities, and the Spaniards brought African slaves as well. The relations of peoples from different castas (in most cases, male Spaniards and female natives) generated the mestizos. Most of them lived in the countryside, and became the Argentine gauchos.[17]
Buenos Aires became the capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776, with territories from the Viceroyalty of Peru. Buenos Aires and Montevideo resisted two ill-fated British invasions in 1806 and 1807. The resistance was headed both times by the French Santiago de Liniers, who would become viceroy through popular support. The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and the example of the Atlantic Revolutions generated criticism to the Absolute monarchy. The overthrow of the Spanish King Ferdinand VII during the Peninsular War created great concern in the Americas, so many cities deposed the monarchic authorities and apppointed new ones, working under the new political ideas. This started the Spanish American wars of independence across the continent. Buenos Aires deposed the viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros in 1810, during the May Revolution.[18]
Independence and civil wars
The May Revolution began the Argentine War of Independence between patriots and royalists. The Primera Junta, the new government in Buenos Aires, sent military campaigns to Córdoba, Upper Peru and Paraguay, and supported the rebellions at the Banda Oriental. The military campaigns were defeated and colonial Brazil supported the royalists at Montevideo, so Buenos Aires signed an armistice.[19] Paraguay stayed Non-interventionist during the remainder of the conflict, Upper Peru defeated further military campaigns, and the Banda Oriental would be captured by William Brown during renewed hostilities. The national organization, either under a centralized government located in Buenos Aires or as a federation, began the Argentine Civil Wars as well, with the conflicts of Buenos Aires and José Gervasio Artigas.[20]
The Argentine Declaration of Independence was issued by the Congress of Tucumán in 1816. Martín Miguel de Güemes kept royalists at bay on the North, while José de San Martín made the Crossing of the Andes, securing the independence of Chile. With the Chilean navy at his disposal he then took the fight to the royalist stronghold of Lima. San Martín's military campaigns complemented those of Simón Bolívar in Gran Colombia and led to the independent's victory in the Spanish American wars of independence.[21]
| Historical states in present-day Argentina |
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The 1820 Battle of Cepeda, fought between the Centralists and the Federalists, resulted in the end of the centralized national authority and created a power vacuum. A new constitution was enacted in 1826, during the War with Brazil, and Bernardino Rivadavia was appointed the first President of Argentina. This constitution was soon rejected by the provinces, due to its centralist bias, and Rivadavia resigned shortly after. The new governor Manuel Dorrego was deposed and executed by Juan Lavalle, which exacerbated the civil war. Juan Manuel de Rosas, who was so far a mere rancher, organized the resistance against Lavalle and restored the deposed authorities. The provinces then reorganized themselves as the Argentine Confederation, a loose confederation of provinces that lacked a common head of state. They would instead delegate some important powers to the governor of Buenos Aires Province, such as debt payment or the management of international relations.[22]
Juan Manuel de Rosas ruled from 1829 to 1832, and from 1835 to 1852. During his first term he convened the Federal pact and defeated the Unitarian League. After 1835 he received the Sum of public power. He faced several unitarian attacks and a constant state of war, including a French blockade from 1838 to 1840, the War of the Confederation in the north, an Anglo-French blockade from 1845 to 1850, and the Corrientes province revolt. Rosas remained undefeated during this series of conflicts and prevented further loss of national territory. His refusal to enact a national constitution, pursuant to the Federal pact, led to Entre Ríos governor Justo José de Urquiza to turn against Rosas. He defeated him at the battle of Caseros, forcing him into exile. The San Nicolás Agreement followed, and then the promulgation of the Constitution of Argentina of 1853. Rejecting it, Buenos Aires seceded from the Confederation and became the State of Buenos Aires. The war between both lasted nearly a decade, and ended with the victory of Buenos Aires at the battle of Pavón.[23]
Buenos Aires rejoined the Confederation, and Bartolomé Mitre was elected the first president of the unified country in 1862. Mitre began military campaigns against both the remaining federals in Argentina, the whites from Uruguay, and Paraguay. The War of the Triple Alliance, in alliance with Uruguay and Brazil, left over 300,000 dead and devastated Paraguay.[24] Unable to influence the election of later presidents, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda followed him. Albeit unitarians, they were not from Buenos Aires, and had conflicts with him. Mitre attempted twice to secede Buenos Aires from the country once more, but failed. Avellaneda proposed the federalization of Buenos Aires, which was resisted in the city, and the national seat of government was temporarily moved to Belgrano (which was not part of Buenos Aires by then). The military conflict ended with the victory of the national army and the federalization of the city.[25]
Since the colonial times, huge territories were under the control of indigenous peoples. All governments since then attempted in some way to stay in good terms, kill them, or push them to ever farther frontiers. The final conflict was the Conquest of the Desert, waged by Julio Argentino Roca. With this military operation, Argentina seized the control of the Patagonia.[26]
Modern history
After 1875 a wave of foreign investment and immigration from Europe led to the strengthening of a cohesive state, the development of modern agriculture and to a near-reinvention of Argentine society and economy. The rule of law was consolidated, in large measure, by Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield whose 1860 Commercial Code and 1869 Civil Code laid the foundation for Argentina's statutory laws.
Argentina increased in prosperity and prominence between 1880 and 1929 and emerged as one of the ten richest countries in the world, benefiting from an agricultural export-led economy as well as British and French investment. Driven by immigration and decreasing mortality the Argentine population grew fivefold and the economy 15-fold.[27] Conservative élites dominated Argentine politics through nominally democratic means until 1912, when President Roque Sáenz Peña enacted universal male suffrage and the secret ballot. This allowed their traditional rivals, the centrist Radical Civic Union, to win the country's first free elections in 1916. President Hipólito Yrigoyen enacted social and economic reforms and extended assistance to family farmers and small business. Yrigoyen was overthrown by a coup in 1930, however, which led to another decade of Conservative rule. The Concordance regime strengthened ties with the British Empire and their electoral policy was one of patriotic fraud. The country was neutral during World War I and most of World War II, becoming an important source of foodstuffs for the Allied Nations.[27]
In 1946, General Juan Perón was elected president, creating a populist movement referred to as Peronism. His wife Eva was popular and played a central political role until her death in 1952, mostly through the Eva Perón Foundation and the Female Peronist Party,[28] as women's suffrage was granted in 1947. During Perón's tenure, wages and working conditions improved appreciably, unionization was fostered, strategic industries and services were nationalized, as well as import substitution industrialization and urban development being prioritized in the agrarian sector.[29]
Formerly stable prices and exchange rates were disrupted however: the peso lost around 70% of its value from 1948 to 1950, and inflation reached 50% in 1951.[30] Foreign policy became more isolationist, straining US-Argentine relations. Perón intensified censorship as well as repression: 110 publications were shuttered,[31] and numerous opposition figures were imprisoned and tortured.[32] Advancing a personality cult, Perón rid himself of many important and capable advisers while promoting patronage. A bombing of Plaza de Mayo was followed some months later by a violent coup which deposed him in 1955. He fled into exile, eventually residing in Spain.
Following an attempt to purge the Peronist influence and the banning of Peronists from political life, elections in 1958 brought Arturo Frondizi to office. Frondizi enjoyed some support from Perón's followers, and his policies encouraged investment to make the country self-sufficient in energy and industry, helping reverse a chronic trade deficit for Argentina. The military frequently interfered on behalf of conservative, agrarian interests however, and the results were mixed.[27] Frondizi was forced to resign in 1962. Arturo Illia was elected in 1963 and enacted expansionist policies but, despite prosperity, his attempts to include Peronists in the political process resulted in the armed forces retaking power in a quiet 1966 coup.
Though repressive, this new regime continued to encourage domestic development and invested record amounts into public works. The economy grew strongly and income poverty declined to 7% by 1975. Partly because of their repressiveness, however, political violence began to escalate and Perón, still in exile, skilfully co-opted student and labor protests which eventually resulted in the military regime's call for free elections in 1973, and Perón's return from Spain.[14]
Taking office that year, Perón died in July 1974 leaving his third wife Isabel, the Vice President, to succeed him in office. Mrs. Perón had been chosen as a compromise among feuding Peronist factions who could agree on no other running mate; secretly though, she was beholden to Perón's most fascist advisers. The resulting conflict, between left and right-wing extremists, led to mayhem, financial chaos and a coup d'état in March 1976 which removed her from office.
The self-styled National Reorganization Process intensified measures against armed groups on the far left, such as People's Revolutionary Army and the Montoneros who had kidnapped and murdered people almost weekly since 1970.[33] Repression was quickly extended to the opposition in general and, during the Dirty War, thousands of dissidents disappeared. These abuses were aided and abetted by the CIA in Operation Condor, with many of the military leaders that took part in abuses trained in the School of the Americas.[34]
The new dictatorship brought some stability at first, and built numerous important public works, but frequent wage freezes and deregulation of finance led to a sharp fall in living standards and record foreign debt.[27] Deindustrialization, the peso's collapse, and crushing real interest rates, as well as unprecedented corruption, public revulsion over the Dirty War, and finally the 1982 defeat by the British in the Falklands War, discredited the military regime and led to free elections in 1983.
Contemporary era
Raúl Alfonsín's government took steps to account for the disappeared, established civilian control of the armed forces, and consolidated democratic institutions. The members of the three military juntas were prosecuted and sentenced to life terms. The previous regime's foreign debt, however, left the Argentine economy saddled by the conditions imposed on it by both its private creditors and the International Monetary Fund, and priority was given to servicing the foreign debt at the expense of public works and domestic credit. Alfonsín's failure to resolve worsening economic problems caused him to lose public confidence. Following a 1989 currency crisis that resulted in a sudden and ruinous 15-fold jump in prices, he left office five months early.[35]
Newly elected President Carlos Menem began pursuing privatizations and, after a second bout of hyperinflation in 1990, reached out to economist Domingo Cavallo, who imposed a peso-US$ fixed exchange rate in 1991 and adopted far-reaching market-based policies, dismantling protectionist barriers and business regulations, while accelerating privatizations. These reforms contributed to significant increases in investment and growth with stable prices through most of the 1990s; but the peso's fixed value could only be maintained by flooding the market with dollars, resulting in a renewed increase in the foreign debt. Towards 1998, moreover, a series of international financial crises and overvaluation of the pegged peso caused a gradual slide into economic crisis. The sense of stability and well being which had prevailed during the 1990s eroded quickly, and by the end of his term in 1999, these accumulating problems and reports of corruption had made Menem unpopular.[36]
President Fernando de la Rúa inherited diminished competitiveness in exports, as well as chronic fiscal deficits. The governing coalition developed rifts, and his returning Cavallo to the Economy Ministry was interpreted as a crisis move by speculators. The decision backfired and Cavallo was eventually forced to take measures to halt a wave of capital flight and to stem the imminent debt crisis (culminating in the freezing of bank accounts). A climate of popular discontent ensued, and on 20 December 2001, Argentina dove into its worst institutional and economic crisis since the 1890 Barings financial debacle. There were violent street protests, which clashed with police and resulted in several fatalities. The increasingly chaotic climate, amid riots accompanied by cries that they should all go, finally resulted in the resignation of President de la Rúa.[37]
Three presidents followed in quick succession over two weeks, culminating in the appointment of interim President Eduardo Duhalde by the Legislative Assembly on 2 January 2002. Argentina defaulted on its international debt, and the peso's 11 year-old tie to the U.S. dollar was rescinded, causing a major depreciation of the peso and a spike in inflation. Duhalde, a Peronist with a centre-left economic position, had to cope with a financial and socio-economic crisis, with unemployment as high as 25% by mid 2002, and the lowest real wages in sixty years. The crisis accentuated the people's mistrust in politicians and institutions. Following a year racked by protest, the economy began to stabilize in late 2002, and restrictions on bank withdrawals were lifted in December.[38]
Benefiting from a devalued exchange rate the government implemented new policies based on re-industrialization, import substitution and increased exports and began seeing consistent fiscal and trade surpluses. Governor Néstor Kirchner, a left-wing Peronist, was elected president in May 2003. During his administration, Argentina restructured its defaulted debt with a steep discount (about 66%) on most bonds, paid off debts with the International Monetary Fund, renegotiated contracts with utilities and nationalized some previously privatized enterprises. Kirchner and his economists, notably Roberto Lavagna, also pursued a vigorous incomes policy and public works investment.[39]
Argentina has since been enjoying economic growth, though with high inflation. Néstor Kirchner forfeited the 2007 campaign, in favor of his wife Senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who became the first woman to be elected President of Argentina. She saw controversial plans for higher agricultural export taxes defeated by Vice President Julio Cobos' surprise tie-breaking vote against them in July 2008, following massive agrarian protests and lockouts from March to July. The global financial crisis has since prom