La Plata

For other uses, see (disambiguation)}}}.

|} La Plata is the capital city of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as well as of the partido of La Plata. The city was planned to serve as the capital of the province after the city of Buenos Aires was declared as the federal district in 1880. It has 574,369 inhabitants as per the 2001 census [INDEC], and 694,253 counting its metropolitan area.

La Plata was officially founded by governor Dardo Rocha on November 19 1882.

Its current mayor is Julio Alak.

History and brief description

La Plata's central square and City Hall seen from the cathedral in construction (circa 1900).

Cathedral of La Plata

Rocha decided to erect a new city to host the provincial government institutions and the planned university. Urban planner Pedro Benoit designed a city layout based on a rationalist conception of urban centers. The city (see figure) has the shape of a square with a central park and two diagonal avenues, north-south and east-west. This design is copied in a self-similar manner in small blocks of six by six blocks in length. Other than the diagonals, all streets are on a rectangular grid, and are numbered consecutively.

The city design and its buildings are said to possess a strong Freemason symbolism. This is said to be a consequence of both Dardo Rocha and Pedro Benoit being Masons.

The designs for the government buildings were chosen in an international architectural competition. Thus, the Governor Palace was designed by Italians, City Hall by Germans, etc. Electric street lighting was installed in 1884 (the first in Latin America).

The cathedral of La Plata, in Gothic style, is the largest church in Argentina.

The La Plata University was founded in 1897 and nationalized in 1905. It is well-known for its observatory and paleontology museum. Ernesto Sábato was a graduate in physics who went on to work at the Sorbonne before becoming a novelist. Doctor René Favaloro was another famous alumnus.

The city was renamed in 1952 as Eva Perón; the original name was restored in 1955.

The city is home to two football (soccer) teams that play in the first division: Estudiantes de La Plata and Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata.

Climate

Usually warm and humid.
Average temperature: 16.3° C
Average clear days: 126 Rain: 1023 Mn
Average humidity: 78%

References

() [Official government website]
() [Municipal information] - Municipal Affairs Federal Institute (IFAM), Municipal Affairs Secretariat, Ministry of Interior, Argentina.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.