Argentina: People
People
Argentina, unlike most Latin American nations, has a population that is principally of European descent, especially of Italian and Spanish origin. The mestizo portion of Argentina's population is very small, except in the northwest, because there has been little mixture between European and indigenous peoples. The native population, which has steadily declined since the coming of the Europeans, is still strong only in parts of the Gran Chaco and the Andean highlands. Italian, Spanish (including Basque), French, German, British, Swiss, and East European immigrants came to Argentina during the 1880s; other large in-migrations of Europeans occurred in the 1930s and following World War II. There has also been some in-migration of Chileans, Bolivians, and Paraguayans.
The gaucho, or Argentine cowboy, the nomadic herder of the Pampas—depicted in
About 90% of the population is at least nominally Roman Catholic. The Jewish population, while only accounting for about 2% of the people, is the largest in Latin America and the fifth largest in the world. Spanish is the country's official language, although English, Italian, German, and French are spoken as well. Argentina has one of South America's lowest population growth rates (under 1%).
Sections in this article:
- Introduction
- The Late Twentieth-Early Twenty-First Centuries
- Argentina During the Exile of Perón
- The Early Twentieth Century
- Independence and the Nineteenth Century
- Early History
- Government
- Economy
- People
- Land
- Bibliography
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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