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Argentina
From Patagonia's ice to the pampas and the Andes
Argentina stretches farther south than almost any inhabited land, a long wedge of a country running from subtropical forest near Iguazu to the wind-scoured glaciers of Patagonia and the cold seas off Tierra del Fuego. It is the second-largest nation in South America, a place of staggering range: the high Andes wall its western edge, the flat and fertile pampas feed much of it, and Buenos Aires, the cosmopolitan capital on the Rio de la Plata, gives the country its European-tinged, restless urban heart. Cattle, grain, tango, and football all carry an Argentine accent recognized around the world.
The Andes form the spine of the west and rise at Aconcagua to 6,959 meters, the loftiest summit outside Asia. East of the mountains lie the grasslands of the pampas, among the richest agricultural soils on Earth, which made Argentina a granary and beef exporter for over a century. To the south, Patagonia opens into a vast, arid steppe broken by glacial lakes and the spectacular ice fields of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. The climate ranges from the humid subtropics in the northeast to the cold, gusty extremes of the far south, where the Andes finally crumble into islands.
Spanish settlement and a long colonial period gave way to independence in 1816, after which waves of Italian and Spanish immigrants reshaped the cities and gave Buenos Aires its distinctive cafe culture and lunfardo slang. The twentieth century brought Peronism, military rule, and recurring economic turbulence, including bouts of hyperinflation that still shadow national life. Yet Argentina remains a cultural powerhouse: the birthplace of tango, home to writers from Borges to Cortazar, and a football-mad nation whose triumphs are treated as national epics.