Buenos Aires

People

According to Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Census, the population of Buenos Aires stood at 3.04 million people (1.65 million women and 1.38 million men) in 1998. The greater metropolitan area had 13.9 million people, making it one of the largest urban concentrations in the world. The densely populated city has 15,201 inhabitants per square kilometer. Nearly 11 percent of the city's residents are foreigners. In the year 2000, 16.8 percent of residents were over the age of 65, and 17.5 percent were under the age of 14.

Most Porteños are the descendants of immigrants from Spain and Italy who came to Argentina in large numbers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, long after the conquering Spaniards pushed off the indigenous people from the area. Many other Europeans have settled in Buenos Aires, including Germans, British, and Jews from central and Eastern Europe. More than 400,000 Jews live in the city, one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. In the 1990s, Buenos Aires was the focus of anti-Semitism. An explosion killed 29 people at the Israeli Embassy in 1992, and another bomb destroyed a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, killing 87 people.

Non-European immigration historically was not welcomed, but there are many people from the Middle East, including Syria and Lebanon. They are collectively known as turcos (Turks). The term sometimes is used in a derogatory manner. Despite their small numbers, some have risen to national prominence, including President Carlos Menem, who is of Syrian ancestry.

In the 1930s, large numbers of poor immigrants from Northern Argentina moved to Buenos Aires looking for work. The newcomers were mostly Mestizo (mixed Indian and European). Today, Mestizos make up about one-third of the population of the city, and many of them remain in poverty. Some live in the villas miserias (villages of misery), shantytowns in the outskirts of the city, and in crowded conditions near the heart of the city. In more recent years, many Bolivians, Peruvians, Paraguayans, and Uruguayans have moved to Buenos Aires.

The national language is Spanish, but many other languages are spoken in

the city, including Italian, German, and English. One of the oldest English-language newspapers in the Americas, The Buenos Aires Herald, has been in circulation since 1876. A colorful slang known as Lunfardo is spoken in the city's slums and waterfront neighborhoods. Argentineans and neighboring Chileans often refer to the Spanish language as Castellano (Castilian).