Buenos Aires

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Buenos Aires was the second-largest

Buenos Aires is also home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America and the second largest in the Western Hemisphere after the United States.^[108][109] The Jewish community of Buenos Aires has historically been characterized by its high level of assimilation, organization and influence in the cultural history of the city.^[110]

Buenos Aires is the seat of a Roman Catholic

Primary education comprises grades 1–7. Most primary schools in the city still adhere to the traditional seven-year primary school, but kids can do grades 1–6 if their high school lasts 6 years, such as

There are many public universities in Argentina, as well as a number of private universities. The University of Buenos Aires, one of the top learning institutions in South America, has produced five Nobel Prize winners and provides taxpayer-funded education for students from all around the globe.^{[113][114][115]} Buenos Aires is a major center for psychoanalysis, particularly the Lacanian school. Buenos Aires is home to several private universities of different quality, such as: Universidad Argentina de la Empresa, Buenos Aires Institute of Technology, CEMA University, Favaloro University, Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, University of Belgrano, University of Palermo, University of Salvador, Universidad Abierta Interamericana, Universidad Argentina John F. Kennedy, Universidad de Ciencias Empresariales y Sociales, Universidad del Museo Social Argentino, Universidad Austral, Universidad CAECE and Torcuato di Tella University.

In April 2024, thousands of protesters, including professors and students, gathered on the streets of Buenos Aires and other cities to demand President Javier Milei increased funding for higher education.^[116]

Puerto Madero, in the Buenos Aires Central Business District, currently represents the largest urban renewal project in the city of Buenos Aires. Having undergone an impressive revival in merely a decade, it is one of the most successful recent waterfront renewal projects in the world.^[117]

Buenos Aires is the financial, industrial, and commercial hub of Argentina. The economy in the city proper alone, measured by gross geographic product (adjusted for purchasing power), totaled US$102.7 billion (US$34,200 per capita) in 2020^[118] and amounts to nearly a quarter of Argentina's as a whole.^[119] Metro Buenos Aires, according to one well-quoted study, constitutes the 13th largest economy among the world's cities in 2005.^[120] The Buenos Aires Human Development Index (0.889 in 2019) is likewise high by international standards.^[121]

The city's services sector is diversified and well-developed by international standards, and accounts for 76 percent of its economy (compared to 59% for all of Argentina's).^[122] Advertising, in particular, plays a prominent role in the export of services at home and abroad. However, the financial and real estate services sector is the largest and contributes to 31 percent of the city's economy. Finance (about a third of this) in Buenos Aires is especially important to Argentina's banking system, accounting for nearly half the nation's bank deposits and lending.^[122] Nearly 300 hotels and another 300 hostels and bed & breakfasts are licensed for tourism, and nearly half the rooms available were in four-star establishments or higher.^[123]

Manufacturing is, nevertheless, still prominent in the city's economy (16 percent) and, concentrated mainly in the southern part of the city. It benefits as much from high local purchasing power and a large local supply of skilled labor as it does from its relationship to massive agriculture and industry just outside the city limits. Construction activity in Buenos Aires has historically been among the most accurate indicators of national economic fortunes, and since 2006 around 3 million square meters (32×10^⁶ sq ft) of construction has been authorized annually.^[122] Meat, dairy, grain, tobacco, wool and leather products are processed or manufactured in the Buenos Aires metro area. Other leading industries are automobile manufacturing, oil refining, metalworking, machine-building, and the production of textiles, chemicals, clothing and beverages.

The city's budget, per Mayor Macri's 2011 proposal, included US$6 billion in revenues and US$6.3 billion in expenditures. The city relies on local income and capital gains taxes for 61 percent of its revenues, while federal revenue sharing contributes 11 percent, property taxes, 9 percent, and vehicle taxes, 6 percent. Other revenues include user fees, fines, and gambling duties. The city devotes 26 percent of its budget to education, 22 percent for health, 17 percent for public services and infrastructure, 16 percent for social welfare and culture, 12 percent in administrative costs and 4 percent for law enforcement. Buenos Aires maintains low debt levels and its service requires less than 3 percent of the budget.^[124]

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council,^[126] tourism has been growing in the Argentine capital since 2002. In a survey by the travel and tourism publication Travel + Leisure Magazine in 2008, visitors voted Buenos Aires the second most desirable city to visit after Florence, Italy.^[127] In 2008, an estimated 2.5 million visitors visited the city.^[128] Buenos Aires is an international hub of highly active and diverse nightlife with bars, dance bars and nightclubs staying open well past midnight.^{[129][130][131]}

Visitors have many options for travel such as going to a tango show, an

Buenos Aires has become a recipient of

Buenos Aires has various types of accommodation ranging from luxurious five star hotels in the city center to budget hotels located in suburban neighborhoods. Nonetheless, the city's transportation system allows easy and inexpensive access to the city. There were, as of February 2008[update], 23 five-star, 61 four-star, 59 three-star and 87 two or one-star hotels, as well as 25

According to data released by Moovit in July 2017, the average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Buenos Aires, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 79 min. 23% of public transit riders, ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 14 min, while 20 percent of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 8.9 km (5.5 mi), while 21% travel for over 12 km (7.5 mi).^[136]

Buenos Aires is based on a rectangular

Toll motorways opened in the late 1970s by mayor Osvaldo Cacciatore, now used by over a million vehicles daily, provide convenient access to the city center.^[140] Cacciatore likewise had financial district streets (roughly 1 square kilometer (0.39 sq mi) in area) closed to private cars during daytime. Most major avenues are, however, gridlocked at peak hours. Following the economic mini-boom of the 1990s, record numbers started commuting by car and congestion increased, as did the time-honored Argentine custom of taking weekends off in the countryside.

The Ministro Pistarini International Airport, commonly known as Ezeiza Airport, is located in the suburb of Ezeiza, in Buenos Aires Province, approximately 22 km (14 mi) south of the city. This airport handles most international air traffic to and from Argentina as well as some domestic flights.

The Aeroparque Jorge Newbery airport, located in the Palermo district of the city next to the riverbank, is the only one within the city limits and serves primarily domestic traffic within Argentina and some regional flights to neighboring South American countries.

Other minor airports near the city are El Palomar Airport, which is located 18 km (11 mi) west of the city and handles some scheduled domestic flights to a number of destinations in Argentina, and the smaller San Fernando Airport which serves only general aviation.

The Buenos Aires Underground (locally known as subte, from "subterráneo" meaning underground or subway), is a high-yield^{[clarification needed]} system providing access to various parts of the city. Opened in 1913, it is the oldest underground system in the Southern Hemisphere and oldest in the Spanish-speaking world. The system has six underground lines and one overground line, named by letters (A to E, and H) and there are 107 stations, and 58.8 km (37 mi) of route, including the Premetro line.^[141] An expansion program is underway to extend existing lines into the outer neighborhoods and add a new north–south line. Route length is expected to reach 89 km (55 mi) by 2011.

Line A is the oldest one (service opened to public in 1913) and stations kept the "belle-époque" decoration, while the original rolling stock from 1913, affectionately known as Las Brujas were retired from the line in 2013. Daily ridership on weekdays is 1.7 million and on the increase.^[142][143] Fares remain relatively cheap, although the city government raised fares by over 125% in January 2012. A single journey, with unlimited interchanges between lines, costs AR$42, which is roughly US$0.23 as of January 2023.^[144]

The most recent expansions to the network were the addition of numerous stations to the network in 2013: San José de Flores and San Pedrito to Line A, Echeverría and Juan Manuel de Rosas to Line B and Hospitales to Line H. Current works include the completion of Line H northwards and addition of three new stations to Line E in the city center.^[145][146] The construction of Line F is due to commence in 2015,^[147] while two other lines are planned for construction in the future.

The Buenos Aires commuter rail system has seven lines:

Commuter rail in the city is mostly operated by the state-owned Trenes Argentinos, though the Urquiza Line and Belgrano Norte Line are operated by private companies Metrovías and Ferrovías respectively.^{[148][149][150]} All services had been operated by Ferrocarriles Argentinos until the company's privatization in 1993, and were then operated by a series of private companies until the lines were put back under state control following a series of high-profile accidents.^[151][152]

Since 2013, there has been a series of large investments on the network, with all lines (with the exception of the Urquiza Line) receiving new rolling stock, along with widespread infrastructure improvements, track replacement, electrification work, refurbishments of stations and building entirely new stations.^{[153][154][155]} Similarly, almost all level crossings have been replaced by underpasses and overpasses in the city, with plans to replace all of them in the near future.^[156] One of the most major projects under way is the electrification of the remaining segments of the Roca Line – the most widely used in the network – and also moving the entire section of the Sarmiento Line which runs through the heart of the city's underground to allow for better frequencies on the line and reduce congestion above ground.^[157][158]

There are also three other major projects on the table. The first would elevate a large segment of the San Martín Line which runs through the city center and electrify the line, while the second would see the electrification and extension of the Belgrano Sur Line to Constitucion station in the city center.^[159][160] If these two projects are completed, then the Belgrano Norte Line would be the only diesel line to run through the city. The third and most ambitious is to build a series of tunnels between three of the city's railway terminals with a large underground central station underneath the Obelisk, connecting all the commuter railway lines in a network dubbed the Red de Expresos Regionales.^[161]

Buenos Aires had an extensive

In December 2010, the city government launched a

There are over 150 city bus lines called Colectivos, each one managed by an individual company. These compete with each other and attract exceptionally high use with virtually no public financial support.^[165] Their frequency makes them equal to the underground systems of other cities, but buses cover a far wider area than the underground system. Colectivos in Buenos Aires do not have a fixed timetable, but run from four to several per hour, depending on the bus line and time of the day. With inexpensive tickets and extensive routes, usually no further than four blocks from commuters' residences, the colectivo is the most popular mode of transport around the city.^[165]

Buenos Aires has recently opened a

The port of Buenos Aires is one of the busiest in South America, as navigable rivers by way of the Rio de la Plata connect the port to northeastern Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. As a result, it serves as the distribution hub for said vast area of the South American continent. The

Buenos Aires is also served by a ferry system operated by the company Buquebus that connects the port of Buenos Aires with the main cities of Uruguay, (Colonia del Sacramento, Montevideo and Punta del Este). More than 2.2 million people per year travel between Argentina and Uruguay with Buquebus. One of these ships is a catamaran, which can reach a top speed of about 80 km/h (50 mph).^[171]

A fleet of 40,000 black-and-yellow taxis ply the streets at all hours. Some taxi drivers may try to take advantage of tourists.,^[172] but radio-link companies provide reliable and safe service; many such companies provide incentives for frequent users. Low-fare limo services, known as remises, are also popular.^[173][174] though currently giving way to ridesharing companies like Uber or Cabify, whose legal status has been the cause of much dispute with the city government^[175]

The city has been a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network after it was named "City of Design" in 2005.^[183]

The identity of

Porteños are generally characterized as

egotist people, a feature that people from the Americas and westerners in general commonly attribute to the entire Argentine population and use as the subject of numerous jokes.^[191] Writing for BBC Mundo Cristina Pérez felt that "the idea of the [Argentines'] vastly developed ego finds strong evidence in lunfardo dictionaries," in words such as "engrupido" (meaning "vain" or "conceited") and "compadrito" (meaning both "brave" and "braggart"), the latter being an archetypal figure of tango.^[192] Paradoxically, porteños are also described as highly self-critical, something that has been called "the other side of the ego coin."^[192] Writers consider the existence of these behaviors the consequence of the European immigration and prosperity that the city experienced during the early 20th century, which generated a feeling of superiority in parts of the population.^[191]

Art

See also: Argentine painting and Museums in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires has a thriving arts culture,

La Boca; renowned venues include MALBA, the National Museum of Fine Arts, Fundación Proa, Faena Arts Center, and the Usina del Arte.^[195] Other popular institutions are the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art, the Benito Quinquela Martín Museum, the Evita Museum, the Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco, the José Hernández Museum, and the Palais de Glace, among others.^[196] A traditional event that occurs once a year is La Noche de los Museos ("Night of the Museums"), when the city's museums, universities, and artistic spaces open their doors for free until early morning; it usually takes place in November.^[197][198]

The first major artistic movements in Argentina coincided with the first signs of political liberty in the country, such as the 1913 sanction of the secret ballot and universal male suffrage, the

Paris School (Modigliani, Chagall, Soutine, Klee), three main groups arose. Buenos Aires has been the birthplace of several artists and movements of national and international relevance and has become a central motif in Argentine artistic production, especially since the 20th century.^[199]

Examples include: the Paris Group – so named for being influenced by the

experimental theater; this generation of artists included Marta Minujín, Dalila Puzzovio, David Lamelas, Clorindo Testa and Diana Dowek

.

Buenos Aires has also become a prominent center of contemporary

Ron English.^[202] Guided tours to see murals and graffiti around the city have been growing steadily.^[205]

Literature

See also: Argentine literature

Buenos Aires has long been considered an intellectual and literary capital of

Spanish-speaking world.^[206][207] Despite its short urban history, Buenos Aires has an abundant literary production; its mythical-literary network "has grown at the same rate at which the streets of the city earned its shores to the pampas and buildings stretched its shadow on the curb."^[208] During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, culture boomed along with the economy and the city emerged as a literary capital and the seat of South America's most powerful publishing industry,^[209] and "even if the economic path grew rocky, ordinary Argentines embraced and stuck to the habit of reading."^[210] By the 1930s, Buenos Aires was the undisputed literary capital of the Spanish-speaking world, with Victoria Ocampo founding the highly influential Sur magazine—which dominated Spanish-language literature for thirty years—^[211] and the arrival of prominent Spanish writers and editors who were escaping the civil war.^[210]

Buenos Aires is one of the most prolific book publishers in Latin America and has more bookstores per capita than any other major city in the world.[210]^[212] Buenos Aires has at least 734 bookstores—roughly 25 bookshops for every 100,000 inhabitants—far above other world cities like London, Paris, Madrid, Moscow and New York.^[210][212] The city also has a thriving market for secondhand books, ranking third in terms of secondhand bookshops per inhabitant, most of them congregated along Avenida Corrientes.^[212] Buenos Aires' book market has been described as "catholic in taste, immune to fads or fashion", with "wide and varied demand."^[212] The popularity of reading among porteños has been variously linked to the wave of mass immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and to the city's "obsession" with psychoanalysis.^[212]

The Buenos Aires International Book Fair has been a major event in the city since the first fair in 1975,^[206] having been described as "perhaps the most important and largest annual literary event in the Spanish-speaking world,"^[213] and "the most important cultural event in Latin America".^[214] In its 2019 edition, the Book Fair was attended by 1.8 million people.^[214]

Buenos Aires was designated as the World Book Capital for the year 2011 by UNESCO.^[215]

Music

See also: Music of Argentina, Argentine tango, and Argentine rock

According to the

modernist style, influenced by twelve-tone techniques and serialism"; while avant-garde music thrived by the 1960s, with the Rockefeller Foundation financing the Centro Interamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales, which brought internationally famous composers to work and teach in Buenos Aires, also establishing an electronic music studio.^[216]

The Río de la Plata is known for being the birthplace of

Juan D'Arienzo and Juan Carlos Cobián.^[218] Tango music experienced a period of splendor during the 1940s, while in the 1960s and 1970s nuevo tango appeared, incorporating elements of classical and jazz music. A contemporary trend is neotango (also known as electrotango), with exponents such as Bajofondo and Gotan Project. On 30 September 2009, UNESCO's Intergovernmental Committee of Intangible Heritage declared tango part of the world's cultural heritage, making Argentina eligible to receive financial assistance in safeguarding tango for future generations.^[219]

The city hosts several music festivals every year. A popular genre is electronic dance music, with festivals including Creamfields BA, SAMC, Moonpark, and a local edition of Ultra Music Festival. Other well-known events include the Buenos Aires Jazz Festival, Personal Fest, Quilmes Rock and Pepsi Music. Some music festivals are held in Greater Buenos Aires, like Lollapalooza, which takes place at the Hipódromo de San Isidro in San Isidro.

Cinema

Main article: Cinema of Argentina

El alma del bandoneón, Adiós Buenos Aires, El Cantor de Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires canta. Argentine films were exported across Latin America, specially Libertad Lamarque's melodramas, and the comedies of Luis Sandrini and Niní Marshall. The popularity of local cinema in the Spanish-speaking world played a key role in the massification of tango music. Carlos Gardel

, an iconic figure of tango and Buenos Aires, became an international star by starring in several films during that era.

In response to large studio productions, the "Generation of the 60s" appeared, a group of filmmakers that produced the first modernist films in Argentina during the early years of that decade. These included Manuel Antín, Lautaro Murúa and René Mugica, among others.^[222]

During the second half of the decade, films of social protest were presented in clandestine exhibitions, the work of

La historia oficial

Located in Buenos Aires is the Pablo Ducrós Hicken Museum of Cinema, the only one in the country dedicated to Argentine cinema and a pioneer of its kind in Latin America.^[223] Every year, the city hosts the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI), which, in its 2015 edition, featured 412 films from 37 countries, and an attendance of 380 thousand people.^[224] Buenos Aires also hosts various other festivals and film cycles, like the Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre, devoted to horror.

Buenos Aires is home to five Argentine television networks: America,

Buenos Aires architecture is characterized by its eclectic nature, with elements resembling

In 1912, the Basilica del Santisimo Sacramento was opened to the public; its construction was funded by the generous donation of Argentine philanthropist Mercedes Castellanos de Anchorena, a member of Argentina's most prominent family. The church is an excellent example of French neo-classicism. With extremely high-grade decorations in its interior, the magnificent Mutin-Cavaillé coll organ (the biggest ever installed in an Argentine church with more than four thousand tubes and four manuals) presided the nave. The altar is full of marble and was the biggest ever built in South America at that time.^[238]

In 1919, the construction of Palacio Barolo began. This was South America's tallest building at the time and was the first Argentine skyscraper built with concrete (1919–1923).^[239] The building was equipped with 9 elevators, plus a twenty-meter-high (65 ft) lobby hall with paintings in the ceiling and Latin phrases embossed in golden bronze letters. A 300,000-candela beacon was installed at the top (110 m), making the building visible even from Uruguay. In 2009, the Barolo Palace went under an exhaustive restoration, and the beacon was made operational again.

In 1936, the 120-meter-tall (395 ft) Kavanagh Building was inaugurated. The building, with its 12 elevators (provided by Otis) and the world's first central air conditioning system (provided by the North American company Carrier), is still an architectural landmark in Buenos Aires.^[240]

The architecture of the second half of the 19th century continued to reproduce French neoclassic models, such as the headquarters of the Banco de la Nación Argentina built by Alejandro Bustillo, and the Museo Hispanoamericano de Buenos Aires of Martín Noel. However, since the 1930s, the influence of Le Corbusier and European rationalism consolidated in a group of young architects from the University of Tucumán, among whom Amancio Williams stands out. The construction of skyscrapers proliferated in Buenos Aires until the 1950s. Newer modern high-technology buildings by Argentine architects in the last years of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st include the Le Parc Tower by Mario Álvarez, the Torre Fortabat by Sánchez Elía, and the Repsol-YPF Tower by César Pelli.

Buenos Aires has over 280 theaters, more than any other city in the world.^[241] Because of this, Buenos Aires is declared the "World's Capital of Theater".^[242] They show everything from musicals to ballet, comedy to circuses.^[243] Some of them are:

• Ferrocarril Oeste
  's Plaza Parque station.
• Córdoba Avenue and two blocks north of Buenos Aires' renowned opera house, the Colón Theater, the Cervantes houses three performance halls, of which the María Guerrero Salon serves as its main hall. Its 456 m² (4,910 sq ft) stage features a 12 m (39 ft) rotating circular platform and can be extended by a further 2.7 m (8.9 ft). The Guerrero Salon can seat 860 spectators, including 512 in the galleries. A secondary hall, the Orestes Caviglia Salon, can seat 150 and is mostly reserved for chamber music concerts. The Luisa Vehíl Salon is a multipurpose room known for its extensive gold leaf
  decor.
• Teatro Gran Rex opened on 8 July 1937 as the largest cinema in South America of its time; it is an Art Deco-style theater.
• theater director
  who popularized classical drama in Argentina during the late 19th century and would establish the important Cervantes Theater (Teatro Nacional Cervantes) in 1921.

Buenos Aires has been a candidate city for the Summer Olympic Games on three occasions: for the

In 1912, the practice of basketball in Argentina was started by the Asociación Cristiana de Jóvenes (YMCA) of Buenos Aires,^[249] when Canadian professor Paul Phillip was in charge of teaching basketball at the YMCA of Paseo Colón Avenue. The first basketball clubs in Argentina, Hindú and Independiente, were located at the YMCAs of the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area. By 1912 the first basketball games were held by YMCA headquarters in Buenos Aires. Nowadays, the Argentine Basketball Confederation is headquartered in Buenos Aires.

Argentina has been the home of world champions in professional

Argentines' love for horses can be experienced in several ways: horse racing at the Hipódromo Argentino de Palermo racetrack, polo in the Campo Argentino de Polo (located just across Libertador Avenue from the Hipódromo), and pato, a kind of basketball played on horseback that was declared the national game in 1953. Polo was brought to the country in the second half of the 19th century by English immigrants.

The first rugby union match in Argentina was played in 1873 in the

Buenos Aires is

Buenos Aires is part of the Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities^[277] from 12 October 1982 establishing brotherly relations with the following cities:

• C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
• Cicerones de Buenos Aires
• Largest cities in the Americas
• List of mayors and chiefs of government of Buenos Aires
• List of twin towns and sister cities of Buenos Aires
• OPENCities
• Outline of Argentina