Buenos Aires’s Plaza de Mayo has long been the site of major political demonstrations, including the steadfast rallies of Argentine women protesting the disappearance of their children during the military regime of the early 1980s.

Broad avenues and well-kept parks and plazas give the city centre of Buenos Aires a feeling of spaciousness and tranquillity. Argentina’s capital and largest city, it is also the country’s leading industrial centre and chief port. Lying along the southern shore of a wide, funnel-shaped bay, the port of Buenos Aires handles the majority of Argentina’s foreign trade. The people of this city proudly call themselves porteños (port dwellers).