Buenos Aires is a great metropolis with 11 million inhabitants and one of the largest in the world. It is also one of the most elegant and busy cities in South America and is in some way the essence of the variety of the Argentinean.
Whilst of modern construction and dynamic activity, it has managed to preserve old traditions and charming corners. The atmosphere, the individual personality of each of its neighbourhoods (barrios), the cordiality of its people and the wide selection of its cultural and commercial opportunities, fascinates one.
Buenos Aires, close to the splendid countryside surrounding it, is the great cosmopolitan doorway to South America. The Capital Federal, bounded by the Rde la Plata and its tributary the Riachuelo, plus the ring roads of Av. General Paz and Av. 27 de Febrero, consists of 47 distinct barrios, some of them very small and others quite large. These barrios have clearly defined limits, but informal boundaries are rarely congruent and often contradictory -the line between Palermo and Recoleta, for instance, is often indistinct, while Av. Cordoba boundary between Balvanera and Recoleta/Barrio Norte so rigidly demarcates two very distinct parts of the city that every porte (as inhabitants of the port capital are known) who crosses the street recognizes the division. Porte use the term microcentro for the area north of Av. de Mayo and east of Av. 9 de Julio, a sector that includes the Florida and Lavalle peatonales (pedestrian malls), Plaza San Martin and the important commercial and entertainment areas along Avs. Corrientes, Cordoba and Santa Fe. In fact, this also comprises parts of the barrio of Retiro and the area popularly known as Congreso, which overlaps the barrio of Balvanera. Barrio Norte, for that matter, is not a formal barrio but rather a neighborhood that comprises mostly residential parts of Recoleta and Retiro.
The major divisions are the microcentro and Av. de Mayo, Congreso and Corrientes, San Telmo and Constituci La Boca, Retiro, Recoleta and Barrio Norte, and Palermo and Belgrano (including the 'Costanera', which provides access to the Rio de la Plata). The capital's traditional focus of activity is the Plaza de Mayo, opposite the Casa Rosada presidential palace. Both the Catedral Metropolitana (cathedral) and portions of the original Cabildo (colonial town council) are also here, at the east end of Av. de Mayo. Street names change, and street numbers rise, on each side of Av. de Mayo, while numbers on east-west streets rise from zero near the waterfront. The broad Av. 9 de Julio forms a second north-south axis, simultaneously encompassing Cerrito and Carlos Pellegrini north of Av. de Mayo, and Lima and Bernardo de Irigoyen south of Av de Mayo. It runs from Plaza Constitucin San Telmo to Av. del Libertador in Recoleta, which continues to the city's exclusive northern suburbs and their spacious parks.
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