Argentina

Argentina has the largest railway system in Latin America, with 36,966 km (22,970 mi) of operating lines in 2008[update], out of a full network of almost 48,000 km (29,826 mi).[196] This system links all 23 provinces plus Buenos Aires City, and connects with all neighboring countries.[197] There are four incompatible gauges in use; this forces virtually all interregional freight traffic to pass through Buenos Aires.[197] The system has been in decline since the 1940s: regularly running up large budgetary deficits, by 1991 it was transporting 1,400 times less goods than it did in 1973.[197] However, in recent years the system has experienced a greater degree of investment from the state, in both commuter rail lines and long distance lines, renewing rolling stock and infrastructure.[198][199] In April 2015, by overwhelming majority the Argentine Senate passed a law which re-created Ferrocarriles Argentinos (2015), effectively re-nationalising the country's railways, a move which saw support from all major political parties on both sides of the political spectrum.[200][201][202]

By 2004[update] Buenos Aires, all provincial capitals except Ushuaia, and all medium-sized towns were interconnected by 69,412 km (43,131 mi) of paved roads, out of a total road network of 231,374 km (143,769 mi).[204] Most important cities are linked by a growing number of expressways, including Buenos Aires–La Plata, Rosario–Córdoba, Córdoba–Villa Carlos Paz, Villa Mercedes–Mendoza, National Route 14 General José Gervasio Artigas and Provincial Route 2 Juan Manuel Fangio, among others.
Nevertheless, this road infrastructure is still inadequate and cannot handle the sharply growing demand caused by deterioration of the railway system.[197]

In 2012[update] there were about 11,000 km (6,835 mi) of waterways,[205] mostly comprising the La Plata, Paraná, Paraguay and Uruguay rivers, with Buenos Aires, Zárate, Campana, Rosario, San Lorenzo, Santa Fe, Barranqueras and San Nicolas de los Arroyos as the main fluvial ports.
Some of the largest sea ports are La Plata–Ensenada, Bahía Blanca, Mar del Plata, Quequén–Necochea, Comodoro Rivadavia, Puerto Deseado, Puerto Madryn, Ushuaia and San Antonio Oeste.
Buenos Aires has historically been the most important port; however since the 1990s the Up-River port region has become dominant: stretching along 67 km (42 mi) of the Paraná river shore in Santa Fe province, it includes 17 ports and in 2013[update] accounted for 50% of all exports.

In 2013[update] there were 161 airports with paved runways[206] out of more than a thousand.[197] The Ezeiza International Airport, about 35 km (22 mi) from downtown Buenos Aires, is the largest in the country, followed by Cataratas del Iguazú in Misiones, and El Plumerillo in Mendoza.[197] Aeroparque, in the city of Buenos Aires, is the most important domestic airport.

Media and communications

Print media industry is highly developed in Argentina, with more than two hundred newspapers. The major national ones include Clarín (centrist, Latin America's best-seller and the second most widely circulated in the Spanish-speaking world), La Nación (center-right, published since 1870), Página/12 (leftist, founded in 1987), the Buenos Aires Herald (Latin America's most prestigious English language daily, liberal, dating back to 1876), La Voz del Interior (center, founded in 1904), and the Argentinisches Tageblatt (German weekly, liberal, published since 1878)

Argentina began the world's first regular radio broadcasting on 27 August 1920, when Richard Wagner's Parsifal was aired by a team of medical students led by Enrique Telémaco Susini in Buenos Aires' Teatro Coliseo.[211] By 2002[update] there were 260 AM and 1150 FM registered radio stations in the country.[213]

The Argentine television industry is large, diverse and popular across Latin America, with many productions and TV formats having been exported abroad. Since 1999 Argentines enjoy the highest availability of cable and satellite television in Latin America,[214] as of 2014[update] totaling 87.4% of the country's households, a rate similar to those in the United States, Canada and Europe.[215]

By 2011[update] Argentina also had the highest coverage of networked telecommunications among Latin American powers: about 67% of its population had internet access and 137.2%, mobile phone subscriptions.[216]

Science and technology

Argentines have received three Nobel Prizes in the Sciences. Bernardo Houssay, the first Latin American recipient, discovered the role of pituitary hormones in regulating glucose in animals, and shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947. Luis Leloir discovered how organisms store energy converting glucose into glycogen and the compounds which are fundamental in metabolizing carbohydrates, receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1970. César Milstein did extensive research in antibodies, sharing the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984. Argentine research has led to treatments for heart diseases and several forms of cancer. Domingo Liotta designed and developed the first artificial heart that was successfully implanted in a human being in 1969. René Favaloro developed the techniques and performed the world's first coronary bypass surgery.

Argentina's nuclear programme has been highly successful. In 1957 Argentina was the first country in Latin America to design and build a research reactor with homegrown technology, the RA-1 Enrico Fermi. This reliance in the development of own nuclear related technologies, instead of simply buying them abroad, was a constant of Argentina's nuclear programme conducted by the civilian National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA). Nuclear facilities with Argentine technology have been built in Peru, Algeria, Australia and Egypt. In 1983, the country admitted having the capability of producing weapon-grade uranium, a major step needed to assemble nuclear weapons; since then, however, Argentina has pledged to use nuclear power only for peaceful purposes.[217] As a member of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Argentina has been a strong voice in support of nuclear non-proliferation efforts[218] and is highly committed to global nuclear security.[219] In 1974 it was the first country in Latin America to put in-line a commercial nuclear power plant, Atucha I. Although the Argentine built parts for that station amounted to 10% of the total, the nuclear fuel it uses are since entirely built in the country. Later nuclear power stations employed a higher percentage of Argentine built components; Embalse, finished in 1983, a 30% and the 2011 Atucha II reactor a 40%.[220]

Despite its modest budget and numerous setbacks, academics and the sciences in Argentina have enjoyed an international respect since the turn of the 1900s, when Luis Agote devised the first safe and effective means of blood transfusion as well as René Favaloro, who was a pioneer in the improvement of the coronary artery bypass surgery. Argentine scientists are still on the cutting edge in fields such as nanotechnology, physics, computer sciences, molecular biology, oncology, ecology and cardiology. Juan Maldacena, an Argentine-American scientist, is a leading figure in string theory.

Space research has also become increasingly active in Argentina. Argentine built satellites include LUSAT-1 (1990), Víctor-1 (1996), PEHUENSAT-1 (2007),[222] and those developed by CONAE, the Argentine space agency, of the SAC series.[223] Argentina has its own satellite programme, nuclear power station designs (4th generation) and public nuclear energy company INVAP, which provides several countries with nuclear reactors.[224] Established in 1991, the CONAE has since launched two satellites successfully and,[225] in June 2009, secured an agreement with the European Space Agency for the installation of a 35-m diameter antenna and other mission support facilities at the Pierre Auger Observatory, the world's foremost cosmic ray observatory.[226] The facility will contribute to numerous ESA space probes, as well as CONAE's own, domestic research projects. Chosen from 20 potential sites and one of only three such ESA installations in the world, the new antenna will create a triangulation which will allow the ESA to ensure mission coverage around the clock[227]

Tourism

Tourism in Argentina is characterized by its cultural offerings and its ample and varied natural assets. The country had 5.57 million visitors in 2013, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the top destination in South America, and second in Latin America after Mexico.[228] Revenues from international tourists reached US$4.41 billion in 2013, down from US$4.89 billion in 2012.[228] The country's capital city, Buenos Aires, is the most visited city in South America.[229] There are 30 National Parks of Argentina including many World Heritage Sites.

The 2010 census counted 40,091,359 inhabitants, up from 36,260,130 in 2001.[231][232] Argentina ranks third in South America in total population, fourth in Latin America and 33rd globally. Its population density of 15 persons per square kilometer of land area is well below the world average of 50 persons. The population growth rate in 2010 was an estimated 1.03% annually, with a birth rate of 17.7 live births per 1,000 inhabitants and a mortality rate of 7.4 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants. Since 2010, the crude net migration rate has ranged from below zero to up to four immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants per year.[233]

Argentina is in the midst of a demographic transition to an older and slower-growing population. The proportion of people under 15 is 25.6%, a little below the world average of 28%, and the proportion of people 65 and older is relatively high at 10.8%. In Latin America this is second only to Uruguay and well above the world average, which is currently 7%. Argentina has one of Latin America's lowest population growth rates as well as a comparatively low infant mortality rate. Its birth rate of 2.3 children per woman is considerably below the high of 7.0 children born per woman in 1895,[234] though still nearly twice as high as in Spain or Italy, which are culturally and demographically similar.[235][236] The median age is 31.9 years and life expectancy at birth is 77.14 years.[237]

In 2010, Argentina became the first country in Latin America, the second in the Americas, and the tenth worldwide to legalize same-sex marriage.[238][239]

Ethnography

As with other areas of new settlement, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Uruguay, Argentina is considered a country of immigrants.[240][241][242] Argentines usually refer to the country as a crisol de razas (crucible of races, or melting pot).

Between 1857 and 1950 Argentina was the country with the second biggest immigration wave in the world, at 6.6 million, second only to the United States in the numbers of immigrants received (27 million) and ahead of other areas of new settlement like Canada, Brazil and Australia.[243][244]

Strikingly, at those times, the national population doubled every two decades. This belief is endured in the popular saying "los argentinos descienden de los barcos" (Argentines descend from the ships). Therefore, most Argentines are descended from the 19th- and 20th-century immigrants of the great immigration wave to Argentina (1850–1955),[245][246] with a great majority of these immigrants coming from diverse European countries, particularly Italy and Spain.[243] The majority of Argentines descend from multiple European ethnic groups, primarily of Italian and Spanish descent, with over 25 million Argentines (almost 60% of the population) having some partial Italian origins.[247]

Argentina is home to a significant Arab population; including those with partial descent, Arab Argentines number 1.3 to 3.5 million, mostly of Syrian and Lebanese origin. As in the United States, they are considered white . The majority of Arab Argentines are Christians belonging to the Maronite Church, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. A minority are Muslims, albeit the largest Muslim community in the Americas. The Asian population in the country numbers around 180,000 individuals, most of whom are of Chinese[248] and Korean descent, although an older Japanese community originating from the early 20th century still exists.[249]

A 2010 study conducted on 218 individuals by the Argentine geneticist Daniel Corach established that the genetic map of Argentina is composed of 79% from different European ethnicities (mainly Spanish and Italian), 18% of different indigenous ethnicities, and 4.3% of African ethnic groups; 63.6% of the tested group had at least one ancestor who was Indigenous.[250][251]

From the 1970s, immigration has mostly been coming from Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru, with smaller numbers from the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Romania.[252] The Argentine government estimates that 750,000 inhabitants lack official documents and has launched a program[253] to encourage illegal immigrants to declare their status in return for two-year residence visas—so far over 670,000 applications have been processed under the program.[254]

Genetics studies

• Homburguer et al., 2015, PLOS One Genetics: 67% European, 28% Amerindian, 4% African and 1,4% Asian.[255]


• Avena et al., 2012, PLOS One Genetics: 65% European, 31% Amerindian, and 4% African.[256]
  
  • Buenos Aires Province: 76% European and 24% others.
  
  
  • South Zone (Chubut Province): 54% European and 46% others.
  
  
  • Northeast Zone (Misiones, Corrientes, Chaco & Formosa provinces): 54% European and 46% others.
  
  
  • Northwest Zone (Salta Province): 33% European and 67% others.


• Oliveira, 2008, on Universidade de Brasília: 60% European, 31% Amerindian and 9% African.[257]


• National Geographic: 52% European, 27% Amerindian ancestry, 9% African and 9% others.[258]

Languages