City of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital, and largest city, of Argentina, currently the second-largest metropolitan area in South America. It is located on the eastern shore of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent.

The city of Buenos Aires is not part of Buenos Aires Province, nor is it its capital; rather, it is an autonomous federal district. Greater Buenos Aires is the fourth-largest conurbation in Latin America, with a population of around 13 million.

Buenos Aires is considered as the wealthiest city in South America and the Southern Hemisphere and an Alpha World City listed by the Loughborough University group's (GaWC) 2008 inventory.

After the internal conflicts of the 19th century, Buenos Aires was federalised and removed from Buenos Aires Province in 1880. The city limits were enlarged to include the former towns of Belgrano and Flores, which are both now neighbourhoods of the city.

Buenos Aires (English: Fair Winds or Good Air) was originally named after the sanctuary of "Nostra Signora di Bonaria" (Italian for "Our Lady of Bonaria") in Cagliari, Sardinia. In the 1994 constitution the city became autonomous, hence its formal name: Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, in English, Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. People from Buenos Aires are called porteños (people of the port).

Origin

The majority of porteños have European origins, with Italian and Spanish descent being the most common.
Other European origins include German, Greek, Irish, Portuguese, French, Croatian, English and Welsh. In the 1990s there was a small wave of immigration from Romania and Ukraine.

There is a minority of old criollo stock, dating back to the Spanish colonial days. The Criollo and Spanish-aboriginal (mestizo) population in the city has increased mostly as a result of immigration, from countries such as Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay, since the second half of the 20th century.
Important Syrian-Lebanese and Armenian communities have had a significant presence in commerce and civic life since the beginning of the 20th century.
The Jewish community in Greater Buenos Aires numbers around 250,000, and is the largest in Latin America. Most are of Northern and Eastern European Ashkenazi origin, primarily Russian, German and Polish Jews, with a significant Sephardic minority, mostly made up of Syrian Jews.
The first major East Asian community in Buenos Aires was the Japanese, mainly from Okinawa. Traditionally, Japanese-Argentines were noted as flower growers; in the city proper, there was a Japanese near-monopoly in dry cleaning.

Later generations have branched out into all fields of economic activity. Starting in the 1970s there has been an important influx of immigration from China and Korea, the latter known mostly for small, family-owned supermarkets.

British and American expatriates

Since 2004 an increasing number of American and British citizens are moving to Buenos Aires, possibly due to the lower cost of living, many of them opening up businesses and some restaurants have become English-speaking favourites.