Page 21 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Argentina

INTRODUCING ARGENTINA  19

A PORTRAIT OF

ARGENTINA

Behind Argentina’s European veneer is a colorful, chaotic, and enchanting Latin
American nation. Passionate about their music, meat, and politics, the people
of the country are fun-loving and friendly. Its breathtaking range of landscapes
and distinct historical evolution, both during and since the Spanish con quest,
combine to make Argentina the exciting destination it is today.
Bounded by the towering Andes in the monuments to their faith. Córdoba,
west and the waters of the Atlantic to Mendoza, and La Plata most strongly
the east, Argentina is the eighth-largest reflect their influence. Following land-
country in the world, second in size only grabbing military campaigns in the 1870s
to Brazil in Latin America. About a third and 1880s in the central and southern
of the country’s popu lation lives in the prov inces, many of Argentina’s indigenous
bustling capital, Buenos Aires, and its peoples were wiped out. A wave of immi-
sprawling sub urbs. The rest of the country grants, mainly from Italy and Spain, swept
is thinly populated, and lonely swathes of into the country, making it Latin America’s
the rural interior, especially in Patagonia, most Europeanized nation. The country’s
are almost devoid of settlement. history is intricately linked to the five
Evidence of the country’s Spanish past nations with which it shares its borders.
abounds across Argentina. In the 16th The landscapes and peoples of Argentina,
century, Jesuits followed in the wake of however, are utterly distinct, with most
the conquistadors, con verting indigenous argentinos bearing a strong sense of
peoples and building magnificent national identity.

Guanacos in Parque Nacional Perito Moreno against a backdrop of the Patagonian Andes
People passing a life-size mural on a street in Caminito, Buenos Aires

018-023_EW_Argentina.indd 19 05/08/16 10:03 am