Argentina

Argentina runs down the southern part of South America, from humid forest along the Paraná to the windswept island of Tierra del Fuego. The Andes form its western edge along its whole length, and in their rain shadow lie the irrigated wine valleys of Mendoza and Salta. At the centre are the Pampas, flat grasslands with deep, dark soils. Further south, Patagonia is a dry plateau of steppe and sheep stations, with ice fields and glacial lakes along the mountains.

Before the Spanish came, the north-west was the southern fringe of the Inca world, while Guaraní, Mapuche and Tehuelche peoples lived in the forests and plains. Independence from Spain was declared at Tucumán in 1816. Between the 1870s and the 1930s millions of Europeans, above all Italians and Spaniards, landed at Buenos Aires, leaving their mark on its accent and its cafés. The twentieth century swung between elected governments and military rule until democracy returned in 1983.

The tango grew up in the port neighbourhoods of the Río de la Plata, and Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar gave Buenos Aires a place in world literature. Football is close to a civic religion, the asado of beef grilled slowly over wood embers is a Sunday ritual, and yerba mate is shared from one gourd. Soybeans, maize, wheat and beef lead the farm economy, Mendoza made Malbec its signature grape, and the salt flats of the north-west yield lithium.