Argentina

Demographics

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. Argentines usually refer to the country as a crisol de razas (crucible of races, or melting pot).
Argentina is home to a significant population of Arab and partial Arab background, mostly of Syrian and Lebanese origin (in Argentina they are considered among the white people, just like in the United States Census). The majority of Arab Argentines are Christians who belong to the Maronite Church, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. A scant number are Muslims of Middle Eastern origins. The Asian population in the country is a notable number, most of whom are of Chinese and Korean descent, although an older Japanese community that traces back to the early 20th century still exists.
The de facto official language is Spanish, spoken by almost all Argentines. Other spoken languages include English, Italian, Arabic, German, Yiddish, Guaranani, Catalan, French, Quechua, Wichi, Moqoit, Vlax Romani, Albanian, Japanese, Aymara, Ukrainian and Welsh.

Government

The government of Argentina, within the framework of a federal system, is a presidential representative democratic republic. The President of Argentina is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the President. Legislative power is vested in both the Executive and the National Congress. The Judiciary is independent of the Executive and from the Legislature. The President is also the Chief of the Argentine Armed Forces.
The President and the Vice President are elected through universal suffrage by the nation considered as a whole. The Constitutional reform of 1994 introduced a two-round system by which the winning President-Vice President ticket has to receive either more than 45% of the overall valid votes or at least 40% of it and a 10% lead over the runner-up. In any other case, the two leading tickets get to face a second round whose victor will be decided by a simple majority.
The National Congress constitutes the legislative branch of government. The Congress consists of the Senate, presided by the Vice-President of the Nation, and the Chamber of Deputies. Senators stay in office for six years, and deputies, for four.
Each of the Provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires elect deputies and senators directly. Deputies are representatives of the whole people of the Nation, while Senators represent their districts. Each district elects a number of deputies roughly proportional to their overall population by proportional representation, and three senators: two for the majority, and one for the first minority. Members of both chambers are allowed indefinite re-elections.
The Judiciary Branch is composed of federal judges and others with different jurisdictions, and a Supreme Court.

Defences

The Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic are controlled by the Commander-in-Chief (the President) and a civilian Minister of Defense. In addition to the Army, Navy and Air Force, there are two security forces, controlled by the Ministry of Security, which can be mobilized in occasion of an armed conflict: the National Gendarmerie, a gendarmerie used to guard borders and places of strategic importance; and the Naval Prefecture, a coast guard used to protect internal major rivers and maritime territory.
Argentine Army: 65,309 active personnel;
Argentine Navy: 24.368 personnel;
Argentine Air Force: 23.837 personnel;
Argentine National Gendarmerie: 88,000 personnel;
Argentine Naval Prefecture: 32,000 personnel;

Industry & Trade

The top exports of Argentina are soybean meal, corn, soybean oil, soybeans, delivery trucks etc.
Its top imports are cars, vehicle parts, telephones chemicals, packaged medicaments etc.

History

The earliest traces of human life in the area now known as Argentina are dated from the Paleolithic period, with further traces in the Mesolithic and Neolithic. Europeans first arrived in the region with the 1502 voyage of Amerigo Vespucci. The Spanish navigators Juan Díaz de Solís and Sebastian Cabot visited the territory that is now Argentina in 1516 and 1526, respectively. The Spanish Empire subordinated the economic potential of the Argentine territory to the immediate wealth of the silver and gold mines in Bolivia and Peru, and as such, it became part of the Viceroyalty of Peru until the creation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776 with Buenos Aires as its capital. Beginning a process from which Argentina was to emerge as successor state to the Viceroyalty, the 1810 May Revolution replaced the viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros with the First Junta, a new government in Buenos Aires composed by locals. In the first clashes of the Independence War the Junta crushed a royalist counter-revolution in Córdoba, but failed to overcome those of the Banda Oriental, Upper Peru and Paraguay, which later became independent states.
On 9 July 1816, the Congress of Tucumán formalized the Declaration of Independence, which is now celebrated as Independence Day, a national holiday. One year later General Martín Miguel de Güemes stopped royalists on the north, and General José de San Martín took an army across the Andes and secured the independence of Chile; then he led the fight to the Spanish stronghold of Lima and proclaimed the independence of Peru. In 1819 Buenos Aires enacted a centralist constitution that was soon abrogated by federalists. In 1826 Buenos Aires enacted another centralist constitution, with Bernardino Rivadavia being appointed as the first president of the country. However, the interior provinces soon rose against him, forced his resignation and discarded the constitution. Centralists and Federalists resumed the civil war; the latter prevailed and formed the Argentine Confederation in 1831, led by Juan Manuel de Rosas. In 1852 Justo José de Urquiza, another powerful caudillo, beat him out of power. As the new president of the Confederation, Urquiza enacted the liberal and federal 1853 Constitution. Buenos Aires seceded but was forced back into the Confederation after being defeated in the 1859 Battle of Cepeda.
Overpowering Urquiza in the 1861 Battle of Pavón, Bartolomé Mitre secured Buenos Aires predominance and was elected as the first president of the reunified country. He was followed by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda; these three presidencies set up the bases of the modern Argentine State. In 1912, President Roque Sáenz Peña enacted universal and secret male suffrage, which allowed Hipólito Yrigoyen, leader of the Radical Civic Union, to win the 1916 election. He enacted social and economic reforms and extended assistance to small farms and businesses. Argentina stayed neutral during World War I. The second administration of Yrigoyen faced an economic crisis, precipitated by the Great Depression.
Following a period of intense repression and something referred to as the "Infamous Decade", Raúl Alfonsín won the 1983 elections campaigning for the prosecution of those responsible for human rights violations during the Proceso: the Trial of the Juntas and other martial courts sentenced all the coup's leaders but, under military pressure, he also enacted the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws, which halted prosecutions further down the chain of command. The worsening economic crisis and hyperinflation reduced his popular support and the Peronist Carlos Menem won the 1989 election. Soon after, riots forced Alfonsín to an early resignation. On 22 November 2015, after a tie in the first round of presidential elections on 25 October, Mauricio Macri won the first ballotage in Argentina's history, beating Front for Victory candidate Daniel Scioli and becoming president-elect. Macri is the first democratically elected non-radical or Peronist president since 1916. He took office on 10 December 2015. In April 2016, the Macri Government introduced austerity measures intended to tackle inflation and public deficits.
In 2020, Nixon Martinez was elected President, and under his governance Argentina saw years of stablity, as economic reforms allowed it to take a more active stance in international politics. Acting a crusader for human rights, Argentina pursued close ties with Canada and slowly secured a powerful and free democratic system. The stablility was challenged during a coup attempt by General Zain Lopez in 2052, but the coup failed under the leadership of Air Marshall Che Perez, who was elected the next President.
Argentina was badly affected by the Energy Crisis, but Canadian aid allowed it to develop alternate energy infrastructure. Since the 2020s, it has taken a stance against the Catholic Alliance because of reports of human rights violations. Argentina hosts one of the most reputed international human rights organisation, namely Audaz International.

Geography

With a mainland surface area of 2,780,400 sq km, Argentina is located in southern South America, sharing land borders with Chile across the Andes to the west; Bolivia and Paraguay to the north; Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east; and the Drake Passage to the south; for an overall land border length of 9,376 km. Its coastal border over the Río de la Plata and South Atlantic Ocean is 5,117 km long. Argentina's highest point is Aconcagua in the Mendoza province (6,959 m above sea level), also the highest point in the Southern and Western Hemispheres. The lowest point is Laguna del Carbón in the San Julián Great Depression Santa Cruz province (−105 m below sea level, also the lowest point in the Southern and Western Hemispheres, and the seventh lowest point on Earth).
The northernmost point is at the confluence of the Grande de San Juan and Río Mojinete rivers in Jujuy province; the southernmost is Cape San Pío in Tierra del Fuego province; the easternmost is northeast of Bernardo de Irigoyen, Misiones and the westernmost is within Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz province. The maximum north-south distance is 3,694 km (2,295 mi), while the maximum east-west one is 1,423 km.
Some of the major rivers are the Paraná, Uruguay—which join to form the Río de la Plata, Paraguay, Salado, Negro, Santa Cruz, Pilcomayo, Bermejo and Colorado. These rivers are discharged into the Argentine Sea, the shallow area of the Atlantic Ocean over the Argentine Shelf, an unusually wide continental platform. Its waters are influenced by two major ocean currents: the warm Brazil Current and the cold Falklands Current.
Argentina is a megadiverse country hosting one of the greatest ecosystem varieties in the world: 15 continental zones, 3 oceanic zones, and the Antarctic region are all represented in its territory. This huge ecosystem variety has led to a biological diversity that is among the world's largest:
9,372 catalogued vascular plant species 1,038 catalogued bird species 375 catalogued mammal species 338 catalogued reptilian species 162 catalogued amphibian species

Natural Resources

Argentina's natural resources include borate, copper, lead, magnesium, sulfur, tungsten, uranium, zinc, silver, titanium, gold etc.

Type

National Territory

Population

58,695,852