Demographics of Argentina

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This article is about the demographic features of the population of Argentina, including population density, ethnicity, economic status and other aspects of the population.

Contents 1 Statistics 1.1 Immigration to Argentina 1.2 Indigenous peoples 1.3 Emigration 2 Demographic distribution 3 Economic status 4 Languages 5 Minority non-indigenous languages 5.1 Italian 5.2 English 5.3 German 5.4 Levantine Arabic 5.5 Welsh 6 Genetic Studies 6.1 Continental Ancestry of Argentineans from Autosomal, Y-Chromosomal and Mitochondrial DNA (Corach et al., 2009) 6.2 Average composition of the Argentine genome (Avena et al., 2006) 6.3 Amerindian Ancestors (Corach-UBA, 2005) 6.4 Average composition of the Argentine genome (Seldin et al., U. California 2006) 6.5 African Ancestors (CGFyL-UBA, 2005) 6.6 Amerindian mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (Bobillo MC et al., 2009) 7 Demographic statistics from the CIA World Factbook 7.1 Country of Birth 7.2 Population 7.3 Age structure 7.4 Median age 7.5 Annual population growth rate 7.6 Birth rate 7.7 Death rate 7.8 Net migration rate 7.9 Urbanization 7.10 Sex ratio 7.11 Infant mortality rate 7.12 Life expectancy at birth 7.13 Total fertility rate 7.14 HIV/AIDS 7.15 Major infectious diseases 7.16 Ethnic groups 7.17 Religions 7.18 Languages 7.19 Literacy 7.20 Education expenditures 8 See also 9 References 10 Sources 11 External links

Statistics

Demography of Argentina
Argentina Population pyramid (2005)[1]
Population	40,301,927
Male population	19,884,139
Female population	20,417,788
Population growth	0.96%
Birth rate	17.4/1,000
Death rate	7.5/1,000
Infant mortality rate	12.5/1,000
Life expectancy	76.3 years
HDI (2008)	0.866
Nationality	Argentine
Demographic bureaus	INDEC

In 2001 census [INDEC], Argentina had a population of 36,260,130 inhabitants, of which 1,527,320, or 4.2%, were born abroad. The population growth rate in 2008 was estimated to be 0.917% annually, with a birth rate of 16.32 live births per 1,000 inhabitants and a mortality rate of 7.54 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants. As of 2008, the total population is of 40,301,927 habitants^[2].

The net migration rate is a modestly positive, 0.39 immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants, though Argentina is the only Latin American state receiving net immigration. The proportion of people under 15, at 24.6%, is a little below the world average (28%), and the cohort of people 65 and older is relatively high, at 10.8%. The percentage of senior citizens in Argentina has long been second only to Uruguay in Latin America and well above the world average (currently 7%).

Argentina's population has long had one of Latin America's lowest growth rates (recently, about one percent a year) and it also enjoys a comparatively low infant mortality rate. Strikingly, though, its birth rate is still nearly twice as high (2.3 children per woman) as that in Spain or Italy, despite comparable religiosity figures.^[3][4] The median age is approximately 30 years and life expectancy at birth is of 76 years.

Argentina, as with other areas of new settlement such as Canada, Australia and the United States, is considered a country of immigrants.^[5]

Most Argentines are descended from colonial-era settlers and of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century immigrants from Europe, and around 86% of Argentina's population self-identify as of European descent.^[6][7] An estimated 8% of the population is mestizo.^[6] A further 4% of Argentines were of Arab or East Asian heritage.^[8] In the last national census, based on self-identification, 600,000 Argentines (1.6 %) declared to be Amerindians as a first- or second-generation member of one of 35 tribes^[9] (see Genetic Studies section).^[10]

The most common ethnic groups are Italian and Spaniard (also Galicians and Basques). It is estimated that up to 25 million Argentines are Italian descent, up to 60% of the total population.^[11] There are also Germanic, Slavic, British and French (also Basques from the French state) populations.^[12]

Immigration to Argentina

Waves of immigrants from European countries arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The main contributors were Italy, Spain, Syria and Lebanon, France, Eastern European nations such as Russia and Poland and Scandinavia (especially Sweden). Smaller waves of settlers from Australia, South Africa and the United States are recorded in Argentine immigration records. Argentina's population doubled every twenty years as a result of large-scale European immigration between 1870 and 1930.^[13] By the 1910s, over 30 percent of the country's population was born outside Argentina, and half of Buenos Aires' population was foreign-born;^[14][15] around 80 percent of the national population were, by then, either European immigrants, their children or grandchildren.^[16]

The overwhelming majority of Argentina's Jewish community (about 2% of the population) derives from immigrants of Northern, Central, and Eastern European origin (Ashkenazi Jews). Argentina's Jewish population is by far the largest Jewish community in all of Latin America and is the fifth largest in the world. Buenos Aires itself is said to have 100,000 practicing Jews, making it one of the largest Jewish urban centers in the world (see also History of the Jews in Argentina).

Small but growing numbers of immigrants from East Asia have also settled in Argentina, mainly in Buenos Aires. The first ship of Okinawans arrived in 1912.^[17] Chinese and Koreans followed later. Today, Chinese are the fastest growing community, with 70,000 Chinese-born residing in the largest Argentine cities.^[18][19]

Recently African refugees have started to settle in Argentina, some illegally with most settling in or around Buenos Aires which their population is estimated to number around 5,000.^[20][21]

Most of the 6.2 million European immigrants arriving between 1850 and 1950, regardless of origin, settled mainly in the centre - southern region of Argentina, the city of Buenos Aires, as well as in other areas.^[22] Due to this large-scale European immigration, Argentina's population more than doubled and consecuently increased the national population.

However, in the first stages of immigration, some formed colonies (especially agricultural colonies) in other parts of the country, often encouraged by the Argentine government and/or sponsored by private individuals and organizations.

Many Scandinavian, British (English and Scottish) and Irish immigrants settled in Patagonia; today, the Chubut Valley has a significant Welsh-descended population and retains many aspects of Welsh culture. But since the 1980s, many Welsh Argentines began to emigrate to Canada and Australia. German and Swiss colonies settled in the provinces of Entre Ríos, Misiones, Formosa, Córdoba Province and Patagonia, as well as in Buenos Aires itself. As many as 2 million Argentines may be of German ancestry.^[23]

Immigration from the Chilean archipelago of Chiloé made up much of the Chilean immigration to the southern region of Patagonia during the late 19th century and the Chilean community continues to be sizable in that region and in Mendoza Province.

Indigenous peoples

According to the provisional data of INDEC's Complementary Survey of Indigenous Peoples (ECPI) 2004 - 2005, 600,000 indigenous persons (about 1.5% of the total population) reside in Argentina. An additional 8% are labeled as Mestizo^[24]. The most numerous of these communities are the Mapuches, who live mostly in the south, the Kollas and Wichís, from the northwest, and the Tobas, who live mostly in the northeast.^[12]

Emigration

The rate of Argentine emigration to Europe (especially to Spain and Italy^[25]) and, to a lesser degree, to South America (mostly to Uruguay and the Brazil) peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s and is noteworthy.^[26]

Demographic distribution

Ninety percent of the Argentine population resides in cities or towns of more than two thousand inhabitants, and over one-third lives in the Greater Buenos Aires area. With 12.8 million inhabitants, this sprawling metropolis serves as the focus for national life. Once among the ten largest metropolises on earth, Buenos Aires is still one of 23 existing megalopolises and the third-largest urban agglomerate in Latin America, behind Mexico City and Sao Paulo.

Argentina's population is unequally distributed across the country: one-third lives in or around the city of Buenos Aires and, including Córdoba, Santa Fe Province and Buenos Aires Provinces, around 24 million people (61 %), live in the Pampas region (equivalent to 21 % of the total area). Attempting to address this lopsided distribution of inhabitants, President Raúl Alfonsín proposed the development of a master-planned federal district (capital) in Viedma (near the coastal city of Bahía Blanca) in 1987 and, thought the plan was approved by the Argentine Chamber of Deputies, the Argentine Senate rejected the bill, tabling the motion in 1989.

The Province of Buenos Aires is the most populated province of the country with 15 million inhabitants (38% of the national population), of which 10 million live in Greater Buenos Aires and 5 million in the rest of the province. The neighboring provinces of Córdoba and Santa Fe follow with populations of around 3 million, each, and the city of Buenos Aires with another 3 million. Seven other provinces are home to a little over one million people, each: Mendoza, Tucumán, Entre Rios, Salta, Chaco, Corrientes and Misiones. Still thinly populated, Argentina has only one province more densely populated than the World average (Tucumán, with 60 inhabitants/km²) while, in the far south, Santa Cruz Province has yet to exceed 1 inhabitant per km² and neighboring Tierra del Fuego Province is Argentina's least populated.

Regarding the territorial distribution of the population, the most significant developments revealed by the 2001 Census was the slight decline in the population of Buenos Aires and the continuing rapid growth of the Patagonia and northwestern regions, a trend confirming the slow displacement of the population of the country towards those areas in evidence since around 1970.

Largest cities of Argentina (2007 INDEC estimate)[27]
Rank	City Name	Province	Pop.	-	Rank	City Name	Province	Pop.
1	Buenos Aires		3,050,728		11	Resistencia		377,000
2	Córdoba		1,372,000		12	Santiago del Estero		357,000
3	Rosario		1,242,000		13	Corrientes		345,000
4	Mendoza		885,434		14	Bahia Blanca		304,000
5	Tucumán		789,000		15	San Salvador de Jujuy		298,000
6	La Plata		732,503		16	Posadas		287,000
7	Mar del Plata		604,563		17	Paraná		268,000
8	Salta		516,000		18	Neuquén		255,000
9	Santa Fe		493,000		19	Merlo		244,168
10	San Juan		453,229		20	Quilmes		230,810

Economic status

Argentines enjoy comparatively high standards of living compared to other Latin American countries; most of the population considers itself middle class^[28] and the country has a high Human Development Index score of 0.869. As of 2008, 20.6% of the population is under the official poverty line^[29] and income distribution has become considerably unequal as a result of the 2001 economic crisis.

The educational level is good, at least in urban areas with ready access to public schools and universities. The Argentine literacy rate is very high (99%).^[30]

In the countryside huge ranches, called estancias, cover much of the Pampa and Patagonia, many of which are the legacy of agricultural colonies established by European immigration during the 19th century.

Some rural people work on estancias, while others own small farms. The soybean boom, the exportation of certain cereals, meats, wines and other fruits, have turned the Argentine countryside into a very profitable business, causing some city people to leave urban areas in search of a more tranquil quality of life.^[31]

Languages

The official language of Argentina is Spanish, and it is spoken by practically the entire population in several different dialects, each having various degrees of Italian and Spanish influences. The most common dialect of Spanish in Argentina is Rioplatense Spanish, and it is so named because it evolved in the central areas around the Río de la Plata basin. Rioplatense Spanish is the standard form of Spanish as used by the Argentine media. Its distinctive feature is widespread voseo, the use of the pronoun vos instead of tú for the second person singular.

Preliminary research has shown that Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects^[32], most closely resembling Neapolitan.This correlates well with immigration patterns. Argentina, and particularly Buenos Aires, had huge numbers of Italian settlers since the 19th century.

Italian influence is shown mainly in vocabulary, lingo and intonation. In addition to Rioplatense Spanish, people of the province of Córdoba have a distinctive intonation pattern. Along the Brazilian border it is quite common to hear a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish called Portuñol.

Some few in the littoral provinces of the north-east speak Guaraní, an Amerindian language, usually mixing it with Spanish. Guaraní as a second language is understood at varying degrees by 3.7% of Argentinians,^[33] and holds official status alongside Spanish in the province of Corrientes. Quechua, another Amerindian language, is also spoken by some people but is confined primarily to Santiago del Estero.

Minority non-indigenous languages

Many Argentines also speak other European languages (Italian, Portuguese, French, German and Croatian, as examples) due to the vast number of immigrants from Europe that came to Argentina.^[7] Due to the linguistic influences of Rioplatense Spanish from Italian, the average Argentine is well-positioned to understand that language to a substantial degree.

Italian

Argentina has more than 1,500,000 Italian speakers;^[34] this tongue is the second most widely spoken language in the nation. Italian immigration from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century made a lasting and significant impact on the pronunciation and vernacular of the nation's spoken Spanish, giving it an Italian flare. Italian has contributed so much to Rioplatense Spanish that many foreigners mistake it for Italian.^[35]

English

English language is a required subject in many schools, and there are also many private English-teaching academies and institutions. Young people have become accustomed to English through movies and the Internet, and knowledge of the language is also required in certain jobs, so most middle-class children and teenagers now speak, read and/or understand it with various degrees of proficiency. According to an official cultural consumption survey conducted in 2006, 42.3% of Argentinians claim to know some English (though only 15.4% of those claimed to have a high level of English comprehension).^[33]

German

Standard German is spoken by between 400,000^[36] and 500,000^[37] Argentines of German ancestry, though the number may be as high as 2,800,000 according to some sources.^[38] German, is the third or fourth most spoken language in Argentina. Today the majority of German-Argentines speak Spanish fluently as a 1st language and German as a 2nd.

Levantine Arabic

There are sources of around one million Levantine Arabic speakers in Argentina,^[36] as a result of immigration from the Middle East, mostly from Syria and Lebanon.

Welsh

There is a small but prosperous community of Argentine Welsh-speakers of approximately 25,000^[39] in the province of Chubut, in the Patagonia region, who descend from 19th century immigrants.

Genetic Studies

Even though Argentina is considered to be a predominantly white country, recent genetic studies have shown that Argentines do have a degree on non-White admixture, mainly due to miscegenation in the Spanish colonial era between the fifteenth- and seventeenth-centuries. However in the phenotypical level, most of Argentines do not show physical characteristics of those groups^[10]. As it is, since Argentines have mainly European genetic admixture, the non-European signal, which is easily discernible at the genetic level, is also easily masked.^[40]

Continental Ancestry of Argentineans from Autosomal, Y-Chromosomal and Mitochondrial DNA (Corach et al., 2009)

According to the last and most thorough study about the Argentine population :

• The mean ancestry components as revealed from the STRUCTURE analysis is 78.6% for European, 17.3% for Native American, and 4.2% for West-African ancestry
• Argentineans carries a large fraction of European genetic heritage in their Y-chromosomal (94.1%) and autosomal (78.5%) DNA, but their mitochondrial gene pool is mostly of Native American ancestry (53.7%); instead, African heritage was small in all three genetic systems (<4%)^[41].

Average composition of the Argentine genome (Avena et al., 2006)

A group of researchers belonging to diverse scientific Argentine and French institutions (CONICET, UBA, Centres D'Anthropologie de Toulouse)^[42],on the base of information gathered in the Hospital of Clinics and Italian of the City of Buenos Aires, concluded that:

• The genetic average admixture of the Argentine population, contains 79.9 % of European contribution, 15.8% Amerindian and 4.3% African.

Amerindian Ancestors (Corach-UBA, 2005)

The "Servicio de Huellas Digitales Genéticas" of University of Buenos Aires concluded in 2005 a research directed by the Argentine geneticist Daniel Corach (realized on 320 individuals of 9 provinces) from genetic scoreboards established that 56% of the 320 individuals has at least one Amerindian ancestor. The study indicates that the genetic Amerindian characteristic, not necessarily demonstrates physical visible feature. From this percentage, only 10% of the population has Amerindian ancestors in both parental lineages.^[43]

Average composition of the Argentine genome (Seldin et al., U. California 2006)

A group of researchers belonging to diverse scientific Argentine, North American, Swedish, and Guatemalan institutions, directed by Michael F. Seldin of University of California^[44], concluded that:

• The genetic average structure of the Argentine population contains 78% of European contribution, 19.4% Amerindian and 2.5% African (using the Bayesian algorithm).

African Ancestors (CGFyL-UBA, 2005)

A research of Centro de Genética de Filosofía y Letras of the University of Buenos Aires established in 2005, after analyzed 500 blood samples in the Italian Hospital, Hospital of Clinics, and the Regional Medical Center of the city of La Plata, that 4.3% of the analyzed samples corresponding to inhabitants of greater Buenos Aires contains genetic African scoreboards (though it is not observed at the phenotypical level).^[45]

Amerindian mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (Bobillo MC et al., 2009)

According to a study by Bobillo MC et al., 2009^[46] on 288 blood samples, observed that the mtDNA Amerindian haplogroups were most frequent in individuals from the northern and southern regions of the country, appearing in more than 60% of the sequences. A slightly different situation is observed in central Argentina, where the Amerindian haplogroups appeared in less than 50% of the analyzed samples, and the European contribution is more relevant. A minor contribution of African lineages is also observed throughout the country^[45]

Demographic statistics from the CIA World Factbook

The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.

Country of Birth

According to the INDEC 1,531,940 of the Argentine resident population were born outside Argentina, representing 4.22% of the total Argentine resident population.^[48][49]

Population

40,913,584 (July 2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 205

Age structure

0-14 years: 25.6% (male 5,369,958/female 5,122,260)

15-64 years: 63.5% (male 12,961,725/female 13,029,265)

65 years and over: 10.8% (male 1,819,057/female 2,545,100) (2009 est.)

Median age

Total: 30 years

Male: 29 years

Female: 31 years (2009 est.)

Annual population growth rate

1.053% (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 124

Birth rate

17.94 births/1,000 population (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 113

Death rate

7.43 deaths/1,000 population (2008 est.)

country comparison to the world: 123

Net migration rate

0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 76

Urbanization

Urban population: 92% of total population (2008)

Rate of urbanization: 1.2% annual rate of change (2005-2010 est.)

Sex ratio

At birth: 1.05 male(s)/female

Under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female

15-64 years: 1 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 0.7 male(s)/female

Total population: 0.97 male(s)/female (2009 est.)

Infant mortality rate

Total: 11.44 deaths/1,000 live births (2009)

country comparison to the world: 149

Male: 12.76 deaths/1,000 live births

Female: 10.06 years/1,000 live births

Life expectancy at birth

Total population: 76.56 years

country comparison to the world: 66

Male: 73.32 years

Female: 79.97 years (2009 est.)

Total fertility rate

2.35 children born/woman (2009 est.)

country comparison to the world: 107

HIV/AIDS

Adult prevalence rate: 0.5% (2007 est.)

country comparison to the world: 72

People living with HIV/AIDS: 120,000 (2007 est.)

country comparison to the world: 42

Deaths: 7,000 (2007 est.)

country comparison to the world: 39

Major infectious diseases

Degree of risk: intermediate

Food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A

Water or contact diseases: leptospirosis (2009)

Ethnic groups

White (mostly Italian and Spanish), 86%; Mestizo (mixed White and Amerindian ancestry) and Amerindian, 10%; East Asian or other non-white groups, 4%.^[6]

Religions

^[50]

Roman Catholic 70%

Protestant 9%

Muslims 1.5%

Jews 0.8%

other religious groups 2.5%

non declared religious affiliation 16.2%

Languages

Spanish (official; most spoken dialect: Rioplatense Spanish); as first and second language, spoken by 98.3%.

Languages spoken by members of ethnic groups/communities: English, Italian, German, French^[7], Yiddish, Russian, Polish, Welsh, Armenian and Croatian.

Portuguese (near Brazilian border)

Guaraní (official in Corrientes Province; spoken also in northeastern litoral areas, near Paraguayan border.

Quechua (in decline, found in the northwest provinces, primarily in Santiago del Estero Province).

Literacy

(defined as individuals of age 15 and over who can read and write):

Total population: 97.2%

male: 97.2%

female: 97.2% (2001 census)

Education expenditures

3.8% of GDP (2004)

country comparison to the world: 113

See also

• Argentina
• Immigration in Argentina
• Ethnography of Argentina
• White Argentine
• Afro Argentine
• Italian settlement in Argentina
• Spanish settlement in Argentina
• Basque settlement in Argentina
• German settlement in Argentina
• Welsh settlement in Argentina
• English settlement in Argentina
• Irish settlement in Argentina
• Swedish settlement in Argentina
• Montenegrins in Argentina
• Ukrainians of Argentina
• White Latin American

References

Sources

External links

• Population cartogram of Argentina

Demographics of South America Sovereign states Argentina · Bolivia · Brazil · Chile · Colombia · Ecuador · Guyana · Panama1 · Paraguay · Peru · Suriname · Trinidad and Tobago1 · Uruguay · Venezuela Dependencies and territories Aruba1 / Bonaire1 / Curaçao1 (Netherlands) · Falkland Islands / South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (United Kingdom) 2 · French Guiana (France) 1 Territories also in or commonly considered to be part of North America.  2 Territories also in or commonly considered to be part of Antarctica.