59 Fun Facts About Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of which country?

Argentina takes its name from the Latin word for silver, a relic of the riches early Spanish explorers dreamed of finding up its rivers.

Buenos Aires sits on which estuary, often described as the world's widest river?

The Río de la Plata means 'river of silver', but the silver was a myth: explorers named it for riches rumoured to lie upstream and searched in vain. It is some 220 km across where it meets the Atlantic.

Residents of Buenos Aires are commonly known by what nickname, which literally means 'port-city person'?

The same word is used in Valparaíso, Montevideo, Acapulco and other port cities, but abroad it is almost always taken to mean someone from Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires is named after a Sardinian Madonna venerated as protector of whom?

Sailors prayed to Our Lady of Bonaria: legend says her statue, thrown overboard in a crate from a storm-tossed ship, stilled the sea and floated ashore at Cagliari. The city's founders are said to have named it for her.

Which Spanish conquistador led the expedition that first founded Buenos Aires, a settlement abandoned within a few years?

Pedro de Mendoza arrived gravely ill and died at sea the next year on his way back to Spain. Short of food and under attack from the local people, the settlers he left behind held out for only a few years more.

From which present-day capital did Juan de Garay sail downriver to found Buenos Aires in 1580?

Asunción had sheltered the survivors when the first settlement was abandoned four decades earlier, so Garay's voyage was a return; he named his town Trinidad, and only its port kept the Buenos Aires name.

Which navigator probed the estuary beside modern Buenos Aires in 1520, hoping it was a passage to the Pacific?

Ferdinand Magellan found his strait later that year, far to the south. Juan Díaz de Solís had explored the same estuary four years earlier and was killed on its shore, which ended his expedition.

Which foreign power briefly occupied Buenos Aires in 1806 and failed again in 1807?

Britain was beaten both times by locally raised forces with little help from Spain, and that success gave the city's criollos the confidence to push for self-rule a few years later.

Which Buenos Aires building hosted the 1810 assembly that deposed the Spanish viceroy?

The Cabildo was the colonial town council's seat. It still stands on the square, though it lost three arches on each side when two avenues were cut past it.

Which city was founded in 1882 to replace Buenos Aires as provincial capital?

La Plata was planned from scratch because making Buenos Aires the federal capital two years earlier had left the surrounding province without a capital of its own.

Since a 1994 amendment gave Buenos Aires autonomy, the city is commonly known by which abbreviation?

CABA stands for Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Until the reform, the national president appointed the city's mayor; residents first elected their own in 1996.

Who won Buenos Aires's first mayoral election in 1996 and later resigned as the nation's president during the 2001 crisis?

Fernando de la Rúa quit halfway through his term as deadly riots over the economic collapse spread, and he left the presidential palace by helicopter.

Which Buenos Aires building houses the national president's office?

Casa Rosada means Pink House. One popular story says cow's blood was mixed into the paint to help it withstand the city's humidity.

Which 1870s president is said to have chosen the colour of Buenos Aires's government house to blend two rival parties' colours?

Domingo Sarmiento is believed to have mixed Federalist red with Unitarian white, hoping the blended colour would cool the long feud between the two parties.

The Obelisk of Buenos Aires was erected in 1936 to mark what anniversary?

It marked 400 years since the city's first foundation, yet three years later the city council voted to tear the Obelisk down, and only the mayor's veto saved it.

Which avenue, 'the street that never sleeps', meets 9 de Julio at the Obelisk?

Corrientes earned the nickname from its late-night pizzerias, cafés and bars. It was widened into an avenue in 1936, the year the Obelisk rose at the crossing in just 31 days.

Avenida 9 de Julio, generally called the widest avenue in the world, is named after what?

Argentina's Independence Day falls on 9 July. France refused to let its embassy be demolished when the avenue was cut through the city, so the mansion still stands at the northern end.

Which Buenos Aires opera house opened in 1908 with Verdi's Aida?

Teatro Colón outlasted two of its architects: Francesco Tamburini died early in the project and his successor Vittorio Meano was murdered before it opened, leaving a third man to finish the job.

Floralis Genérica, a giant steel flower in Buenos Aires, was built to do what?

Open each morning is what its petals were built to do, closing again at dusk. The architect Eduardo Catalano created the 18-ton flower and gave it to the city as a gift.

The brightly painted street museum called Caminito is found in which Buenos Aires neighbourhood?

La Boca was home to the painter Benito Quinquela Martín, who in the 1950s led the drive to turn the alley, an abandoned railway line, into an open-air street museum.

Boca Juniors' stadium is nicknamed La Bombonera because of its resemblance to what?

A chocolate box is what 'bombonera' means in Spanish. The story goes that architect Viktor Sulčič was given one as a gift and was struck by how closely it matched his steep, stacked plans.

The fiercest derby in Argentine football, the Superclásico, pits Boca Juniors against which club?

River Plate was founded in the same dockside neighbourhood as its rival, four years earlier. It later moved north across the city, and a costly signing in 1931 earned it the nickname 'the Millionaires'.

Which team did hosts Argentina beat 3–1 in Buenos Aires to win the 1978 World Cup?

The Netherlands were inches from winning it: Rob Rensenbrink hit the woodwork in the last seconds of normal time, before Mario Kempes and Daniel Bertoni scored in extra time.

Buenos Aires lost its bid to host the 1956 Summer Olympics by a single vote to which city?

Melbourne won the final ballot 21–20, then found that Australia's quarantine laws kept foreign horses out, so the equestrian events were held in Stockholm months before the Games.

Pato, declared the national game in 1953, is best described as a kind of what?

Basketball played on horseback is the tamed version: riders once fought over a live duck in a basket, and the game was banned several times for its violence before rules were written in the 1930s.

Which driver won the Argentine Grand Prix in Buenos Aires four years running, from 1954 to 1957?

Juan Manuel Fangio won the 1955 race in searing heat, driving all three hours himself while the next three cars home were each shared between three exhausted drivers.

Buenos Aires's metro, opened in 1913, holds what distinction?

Oldest in the Southern Hemisphere, it beat Sydney's first underground stations by 13 years, and the wooden carriages built for its first line stayed in daily service until 2013.

What do residents of Buenos Aires call their city buses?

Colectivos began in 1928, when taxi drivers hung route signs on their cars and started carrying several strangers at once along a fixed route.

Which three-letter code, taken from the suburb where it stands, identifies Buenos Aires's main international airport?

EZE comes from Ezeiza, the suburb where it stands. The official name honours Juan Pistarini, the public works minister who proposed the airport in the 1930s and built it in the 1940s.

Which company runs the fast ferries that cross directly between Buenos Aires and Montevideo?

Buquebus runs the Francisco on that route, a catamaran driven by aircraft-style gas turbines, which is why Guinness lists it as the world's fastest ferry at about 107 km/h.

Buenos Aires's licensed taxis are painted in which two colours?

Black and yellow paint marks almost 40,000 licensed cabs, a fleet so large that one can usually be flagged down straight off the street.

What is the local dialect of Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires called?

Rioplatense is shared with Uruguay, and a phonetic study traced its distinctive melody to Italian: the pattern emerged around 1900, just as immigration from Italy peaked.

Lunfardo, the street slang of Buenos Aires, plays a word game called vesre, which does what to a word?

Reverses its syllables: the name vesre is itself 'revés', Spanish for backwards, turned around, and the same trick turns café into feca.

Which Buenos Aires neighbourhood fills its Plaza Dorrego with a famous antiques fair every Sunday?

San Telmo was a wealthy district until the yellow fever epidemic of 1871 struck it, and the grand old houses left to decay are the ones now filled with antique dealers.

Which cardinal, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, was elected pope in 2013?

Jorge Bergoglio spent his years as archbishop in a simple downtown flat instead of the official residence, and crossed the city by public transport, not in a chauffeured car.

Which tango legend, killed in a 1935 plane crash, is buried in Buenos Aires's Chacarita Cemetery?

Carlos Gardel died on tour in Colombia at the height of his fame. Tens of thousands of mourners watched his funeral procession, and his tomb has drawn pilgrims ever since.

La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires is best known as the resting place of which famous Argentine?

Eva Perón reached the Duarte family vault only in the 1970s: after the 1955 coup her enemies stole her embalmed body and kept it hidden in Italy for 16 years.

The Buenos Aires Japanese Gardens were inaugurated in 1967 during a state visit by which royal couple?

They are the largest Japanese gardens outside Japan, sitting near Palermo's Parque Tres de Febrero, which was laid out by French landscaper Carlos Thays.

Which Buenos Aires office tower, the continent's tallest when it opened in 1923, is crowned by a lighthouse?

Palacio Barolo was planned as a monument to Dante: its architect divided the building into hell, purgatory and heaven after the Divine Comedy, with the lighthouse shining at the very top.

According to legend, Corina Kavanagh built her 1936 Buenos Aires skyscraper to block the aristocratic Anchorenas' view of what?

Their family church stood across the plaza from the Anchorena palace. The story goes that the Anchorenas had broken up a romance between the families, and the 120-metre tower still hides the basilica.

A 2015 study of world cities found Buenos Aires had more of what per person than any other?

Bookstores numbered about 25 for every 100,000 residents, just ahead of Hong Kong's 22. One reason: books escape the country's 21% sales tax, while e-readers and online sellers had made little headway.

With around 300 venues, Buenos Aires claims one of the world's busiest scenes for which performing art?

Theatre lights about 300 stages here every weekend, by the city's own count. Its culture minister said in 2014 that not even London, the closest rival, could match that number.

Which Buenos Aires square did rebel military aircraft bomb in June 1955 in a failed attempt to kill Juan Perón?

Plaza de Mayo was bombed at midday and more than 300 civilians died. Perón survived, but a second uprising three months later overthrew him and sent him into a long exile in Spain.

What fell on Buenos Aires on 9 July 2007 for the first time in 89 years?

Snow fell for several hours, and because 9 July is a national holiday, crowds poured into the streets and parks to see it, many for the first time in their lives; the last snowfall had been in 1918.

The Buenos Aires Underground is known locally by what short name?

Subte is short for 'subterráneo'. The first line's cars were half tram: one set of doors served the platforms and another, with steps, served the street, where they ran on beyond the tunnel.

Buenos Aires, with its European-flavoured culture, is often nicknamed the 'Paris of' where?

South America's Paris was a deliberate project: the city's rulers laid out broad avenues in open imitation of Haussmann's Paris, while its richest families built themselves mansions in the French style.

Which pope visited Buenos Aires in June 1982, during the Falklands War, and returned in 1987?

John Paul II had toured the other country in the Falklands War less than two weeks earlier. He landed in Buenos Aires on 11 June, three days before the fighting ended.

Which tree, planted by the thousand along Buenos Aires streets, turns the city purple every November?

Jacaranda grows wild in the mountain forests of the country's north. The French-born landscaper Carlos Thays, parks director from 1891, brought it south to line the capital's new streets and squares.

What fills the land Buenos Aires reclaimed from its river for a never-built government district?

Nature reserve was never the plan: once the project was dropped, plants and birds took over the empty landfill on their own, and in 1986 the city made it a protected area.

Buenos Aires is home to Latin America's largest community of which faith?

Judaism grew fast here from the 1880s, as immigrants fled persecution in the Russian Empire. The community is big enough to support a kosher McDonald's in the Abasto shopping mall, a rarity outside Israel.

Which future guerrilla leader qualified as a doctor in Buenos Aires?

Che Guevara broke off his medical course for a nine-month journey across the continent that began on a motorcycle, and the poverty he saw on the road changed his politics before he had even graduated.

Which comic-strip girl sits as a statue on a Buenos Aires street corner?

Mafalda sits there because her creator Quino's old home is a few steps away. His small heroine, in print from 1964, worries about humanity and world peace and became famous far beyond the country.

Which Buenos Aires-born writer became National Library director in 1955 while going blind?

Jorge Luis Borges got the post when Perón fell; Perón's government had pushed him out of a humbler library job nine years earlier. By then he was too blind to read the books in his care.

One Buenos Aires area has so many therapists that it is nicknamed 'Villa' what?

Freud's method flourishes here, helped by a culture where seeing a therapist carries little stigma and people talk about their sessions openly.

Which Buenos Aires club gave Diego Maradona his debut ten days before he turned 16?

Argentinos Juniors had taken him into its boys' side, the Little Onions, when he was eight, and the club's stadium now carries his name.

Which international sporting event did Buenos Aires host for the first time anywhere, in 1951?

The Pan American Games were first awarded to Buenos Aires for 1942, but the Second World War forced a nine-year wait before the city finally staged the inaugural edition.

Buenos Aires's first rugby players, in 1873, are thought to have been members of a local club founded for which sport?

Cricket came first: members of the Buenos Aires Cricket Club had already staged the country's first football match on their Palermo ground in 1867. A planetarium now stands near the spot.

Organised basketball began in Buenos Aires in 1912 at the local branch of which organisation?

The YMCA spread basketball almost from its birth: James Naismith devised the game in 1891 at a Massachusetts college then named the International YMCA Training School, and its students took it home to their own branches.

Which Buenos Aires café, opened in 1858, shares its name with a celebrated Paris coffee house?

Café Tortoni drew so many artists and writers to its tables in the 1920s that it gave them its wine cellar, and their club met in that basement from 1926 to 1943.