Located on the southeastern coast of the American continent, Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina and its most populated city. Cuna del Tango, is also a city where opera and theater flourish and its restaurants offer the best cuts of meat from the Pampean region and the excellent wine from Mendoza. With world-class architecture and a cultural and recreational life, especially at night, extraordinary is known as "the Paris of Latin America". Join us to know 25 Curiosities of Buenos Aires impressive . Surely they will surprise you.
The city of Buenos Aires has approximately 3 million inhabitants, but its metropolitan area reaches 15 million people who live in the 24 districts adjacent to the capital. It is an important tourist destination and one of the most important cities in America. The Río de la Plata, to the north and east, and the Riachuelo to the south mark the natural limits of this magnificent city.
25 Curiosities of Buenos Aires
1. One of the curiosities of Buenos Aires It is having been founded twice. The first was in the year 1536 when Pedro de Mendoza founded a fort that was baptized as Royal of Our Lady Santa María del Buen Ayre . Advocación of the Virgin that the sailors venerated at that time. The Querandi, the local tribe, made them flee shortly, but a few years later, in 1580, the Spaniards commanded by Juan de Garay returned and the settlement became permanent, taking the name of Ciudad de la Santisima Trinidad and Puerto de Santa María from Buenos Aires. From the seventeenth century, his name was shortened to the current nomenclature.
2. Until 1776 it was not an official port to trade with Spain and a Viceroyalty. Before, the merchants of Buenos Aires were forced to take their merchandise to Peru, viceroyalty to which the city belonged, and from there they went to Panama to embark. This led to smuggling especially with the English until it was officially named "port".
3. 85% of the inhabitants of Buenos Aires are descendants of Europeans, a result of the massive waves of immigrants from Italy, Germany and Spain, mainly arriving from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.
4. Buenos Aires, like other capital cities such as Washington DC, has since 1880, its own federal district. Its official name is "Autonomous City of Buenos Aires" which is often cited as CABA. Since 1994, the Argentine government granted independence to the city so that it could elect its own mayor.
5. One of the curiosities of Buenos Aires It is one of its main streets: the "Avenida 9 de Julio". Walk the center of the city from north to south. It has 16 lanes of circulation in its central roadway and is one of the widest avenues in the world since it is 140 meters long. To cross it completely you need several traffic lights.
6. In a large part of the city, the streets are organized in grids which makes it very easy to move around Buenos Aires, especially in the large amount of public transport found in it.
7. The Buenos Aires metro was built in 1913 and it is the oldest in Latin America. In some of the stations of the numerous lines there are often artistic exhibitions such as murals, sculptures and even musical performances. To commemorate 100 years of operation, a complete symphony orchestra played at the Plaza de Mayo station on line A of the metro.
8. In Buenos Aires is the Casa Rosada, the building in which the President of the Nation lives. There are two different theories about the origin of being painted pink. One says that it symbolizes the union of two political parties of the late nineteenth century whose representative colors were white and red respectively. The second says that it actually comes from the mixture, based on cow blood, with which the buildings were painted to protect them from heat and humidity.
9. The inhabitants of Buenos Aires are known as "porteños". This gentilicio also applies to the natives of other cities with a port such as El Puerto de Santa María in Cádiz. The name of the natives of the City of Buenos Aires is "porteño" and of those of the province of Buenos Aires is "Buenos Aires".
10. Another of the curiosities of Buenos Aires is that in some of its neighborhoods a dialect of the Spanish known as lunfardo is spoken. It has so many Italian influences that its intonation, according to a recent study , it is more like the Italian of Naples than the traditional Spanish.
12. Buenos Aires is the city with the most football stadiums. Eight of the twenty best teams in Argentina are from the city and there is a great rivalry between them. The most famous stadium is La Bombonera, where Boca Juniors plays that made Maradona a star in the 1980s. There is a touristic tour that visits numerous stadiums in the city.
13. The Teatro Colón is one of the 10 best opera theaters in the world and one of the top 5 for its concert acoustics. Its construction took 20 years and replaced the original that was inaugurated in 1857 and closed its doors in 1888.
14. Tango originated in the brothels that surrounded Buenos Aires and had African, European and native influences. According to experts at its origin was the dramatization of the relationship between a prostitute and her proxenecta. Although at the beginning it was considered offensive in some environments, artists like Carlos Gardel knew how to polish it so that taking it to Europe became an immediate success.
15. If you like to read Buenos Aires it's your city. It is the city with the largest number of bookstores: one for every 4,000 inhabitants. Apparently the success of these businesses is due to the policy of not carrying taxes on the sale of books,
16. A place to visit and that is another of the curiosities of Buenos Aires It's the Japanese Garden. Is found in the neighborhood of Palermo and was built in the late 1960s to honor the visit of a prince of Japan. It is the largest Japanese garden outside of Japan.
17. In Buenos Aires is the largest university in Argentina and the second largest in Latin America. Four Nobel Prize winners and many of the presidents of the nation have come out of it. Che Guevara also studied medicine there.
18. From 1876 until July 31, 2017, an English newspaper was published in Buenos Aires, it was the Buenos Aires Herald. During the military dictatorship it was the only means of communication in Buenos Aires that regularly reported on the disappearances that the government orchestrated. In 1979, its director Robert Cox, had to go into exile.
19. The Plaza de Mayo is considered the main place of the foundation of Buenos Aires. It was reformed in 1884 and has been the scene of the most important events in the history not only of the city, but of all of Argentina. It is world famous for being the place of manifestation of the "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo".
20. According to a study conducted in 2012, one of the curiosities of Buenos Aires is to be the city in the world with the most psychologists per capita. Many of them practice Freudian psychoanalysis.
21. In the Plaza de la República you can see "The Obelisk of Buenos Aires". It is an icon of the city since it commemorates the fourth centenary of the first foundation of Buenos Aires.
22. Another of the famous places of the capital of Argentina and one of the curiosities of Buenos Aires It is the Cemetery of Recoleta. Locals and tourists visit it equally attracted by the magnificent mausoleums. It is buried historical and famous people of the nation. Among its tombs stands out that of Eva Perón, whose embalmed corpse rests in the tomb of the Duarte family.
23. The coffee culture has had a long journey in Buenos Aires. One of the more traditional places is the Café Tortoni , but there are more than 70 historic cafes in the city that brought together illustrious figures from literature, music and politics.
24. It is the city in the world that has the largest number of pets per capita. 60% of households have one. Above all there are dogs and, singularly, the locals prefer to adopt their pets instead of buying them so there are practically no stray dogs. In wealthy neighborhoods it is common to see dog walkers with more than 10 dogs.
25. The last of these curiosities of Buenos Aires we will dedicate it to athletes. Not only soccer triumphs as a sport in the city. Polo is one of the favorite sports in the capital as well as in all of Argentina. The best polo players in the world are Argentines. The sport was taken to the city in the mid-nineteenth century by English workers who worked in the construction of the subway.
Other Curiosities of Cities
Do you want to know more secrets of different countries and its beautiful metropolis? Help us discover more curiosities of Europe and more curiosities of America exploring the most amazing city data as wonderful as Buenos Aires! For example:
- Curiosities of Barcelona
- Curiosities of Seville
- Curiosities of Madrid
- Curiosities of Bilbao
- Curiosities of London
- Curiosities of Paris
- Curiosities of Prague
- Curiosities of Venice
- Curiosities of Florence
- Curiosities of Amsterdam
- Curiosities of Berlin
- Curiosities of Brussels
- Curiosities of Vienna
- Curiosities of Milan
- Curiosities of Valencia
- Edinburgh Curiosities
- Curiosities of Miami
As you see, the capital of Argentina, hides many interesting places to discover. What do you think about our selection of curiosities of Buenos Aires ? Do you know any that we have not taken into account? Tell us and we can expand this list of curiosities.
Images: Georgez ,