What is the capital of Argentina?

Buenos Aires sits on the southern bank of the Río de la Plata, a vast estuary that gave Spanish and later Argentine trade its outlet to the Atlantic. It was founded twice, the first attempt abandoned, and for much of the colonial period it was a neglected backwater because Spain funnelled South American trade through Lima and the Pacific instead. That changed when the crown created the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in the late eighteenth century and legal trade flowed through the port, after which the city grew rapidly on the export of hides, wool, beef and grain from the pampas behind it. Waves of Italian and Spanish immigration in the following century gave the city its accent, its architecture and much of its food. Its dominance over the interior provoked long conflict, and the city was eventually federalised as a district separate from Buenos Aires Province to settle the dispute.

Residents are called porteños, meaning people of the port, a name that reflects the city's origins.