WHAT IS THE BUENOS AIRES SUBURBS? - GEOGRAPHY - 2025

The Buenos Aires suburbs is a strip of territory that surrounds the Federal Capital of Argentina. This has been the case since 1994 thanks to a constitutional reform that determined that the capital became a politically autonomous city.

From that year on, a geographical separation between the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA) and the conglomerate that surrounds it, that is, the Buenos Aires suburbs, also called Greater Buenos Aires, begins to be made.

Although the terms "Buenos Aires suburbs" and "Greater Buenos Aires" are often used interchangeably, in reality the latter also includes the Federal Capital.

Another term used to name the suburbs is the Metropolitan Area of ​​Buenos Aires (AMBA) and others are now more obsolete as the Metropolitan Area of ​​Buenos Aires (ZMBA) or the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires (RMBA).

In any case, they refer to the same area that begins at the limit point of the Federal Capital, very well identified by Avenida General Paz -which surrounds the city to the north and west- and by the Riachuelo in the south.

The east of the Capital (and the entire province of Buenos Aires) has the natural limit of the Río de la Plata.

Area and division of Buenos Aires suburbs

The Buenos Aires suburbs have an area of ​​approximately 2,480 km², 1% of the total area of ​​Argentina, where an astonishingly quarter of the entire national population lives (9,916,715 inhabitants according to the 2010 national census).

The exact size of the area varies depending on the source being consulted, as some include certain areas that others do not.

Different laws throughout different periods have been changing the territorial division of the suburbs, from its incipient formation in the last quarter of the 19th century, through its industrialization phase (from 1930 to 1970) where it was densified and consolidated, and then suffered much more frequent reorganizations in 1979, 1989, 1992 and 1994.

Northern area of ​​the Buenos Aires suburbs

In 2006, Law 13473/06 was enacted in force to date, which divides the territory of the suburbs into 8 zones and 33 municipalities or parties, namely:

1-Gran La Plata: parties of Berisso, Ensenada and La Plata.

2- Southwest: La Matanza, Lanús and Lomas de Zamora matches.

3- Southeast: Quilmes, Florencio Varela, Avellaneda, Almirante Brown and Berazategui matches.

4- South: Ezeiza, Esteban Echeverría, President Perón and San Vicente parties.

5- North Center: Tres de Febrero, San Miguel, José C. Paz, General San Martín, San Miguel and Malvinas Argentinas parties.

6- Northwest: parties of Merlo, Moreno, Pilar and General Rodríguez.

7-Northeast: matches of Escobar, San Fernando, San Isidro, Tigre and Vicente López.

8- West: Hurlingham, Ituzaingó and Morón matches.

It should be noted that so many changes over the last decades partly explain why there are so many denominations and distributions for the same area.

In addition, various institutions use different criteria, such as the Directorate of Urban and Territorial Planning, or INDEC (National Institute of Statistics and Censuses) regrouping and renaming certain areas for their studies.

For all the above it can be said that the Buenos Aires suburbs is an area known to all but quite ambiguous in its delimitation and description.

Characteristics of the Buenos Aires suburbs

This area bordering the Argentine capital sits on a plateau with depressions through which rivers and streams run, and has a large river front over the delta of the Paraná River and the Río de la Plata.

It has a benign climate whose temperatures are usually between 2 and 3 degrees below the temperature of the capital. Together with the capital, it produces more than half of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), thanks to a booming industry.

The cordons of the Buenos Aires suburbs

As already mentioned, the suburbs begins at the point where the Capital ends and extends for approximately 50 kilometers.

These are divided informally and for simple practicality into "first cordon", "second cordon" and "third cordon", which are nothing more than imaginary subdivisions of more or less 10 to 15 kilometers each, the first cordon being the strip closest to the capital, and the following cords, concentric to it, are moving away towards the periphery.

The first cordon of the suburbs, being the closest to the capital, is also the most densely populated and the most developed, with a high percentage of the middle class, rather stagnant population growth and 100% coverage in the networks of basic services.

The second cordon is less dense, with a younger population and lower-middle and lower class; It has empty spaces, but those that are inhabited tend to be highly overcrowded.

Panoramic of Buenos Aires

Population growth is faster and the quality of basic services is of lower quality and scope (generally they only reach the center of each suburb). Finally, in the third cordon, the urban area ends and the semi-rural area begins.

A more modern division raises the suburbs divided into three “corridors”: the northern corridor, which goes from San Isidro to Pilar-Escobar, more vigorous, with important investments in infrastructure and public works; the southern corridor, which runs from the party of Florencio Varela to that of President Perón, quite economically disadvantaged.

Finally, the west corridor, which in some way serves as a connector between the north and south corridors, also has an intermediate economic development.

References

1. Andrés Barsky (2004). What differences are there between Greater Buenos Aires, the suburbs, the Area and the Metropolitan Region? Geored, Year 1 N ° 23. Recovered from georedweb.com.ar.
2. Metropolitan Area of ​​Buenos Aires (2011). Recovered from salud.ciee.flacso.org.ar.
3. Daniel Arroyo (05/16/2013). The Buenos Aires suburbs, from laces to corridors. Opinion note. Recovered from clarin.com.
4. Greater Buenos Aires. Recovered from es.wikipedia.org.