Greater Buenos Aires

Thus, it does not constitute a single administrative unit. The conurbation spreads south, west and north of Buenos Aires city. To the east, the River Plate serves as a natural boundary.

Gran Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires
Satellite image of Greater Buenos Aires at night
Country	Argentina
Core city	Buenos Aires
Area
• Metro	3,833 km2 (1,480 sq mi)
Population  (INDEC 2022 Census)	10,865,182 (24 partidos)
• Metro	13,985,794 (including the Federal District and 24 partidos)
• Metro density	3,926.1/km2 (10,169/sq mi)
GDP (PPP, constant 2015 values)
• Year	2023
• Total	$356.8 billion
• Per capita	$23,000

Urban sprawl, especially between 1945 and 1980, created a vast metropolitan area of over 3,800 km² (1,500 mi²) - or 19 times the area of Buenos Aires proper. The 24 suburban partidos (counties) grew more than six-fold in population between the 1947 and 2022 censuses - or nearly 2.5% annually, compared to 1.4% for the nation as a whole.

While annual growth for the suburban area slowed to 0.8% between 2010 and 2022, the 14 million inhabitants in the entire 30-county area plus the City of Buenos Aires account for a third of the total population of Argentina and generate nearly half (48%) of the country's GDP.

The term Gran Buenos Aires ("Greater Buenos Aires") was first officially used in 1948, when Governor of Buenos Aires Province Domingo Mercante signed a bill delineating as such an area covering 14 municipalities surrounding the City of Buenos Aires. The term is also related to other expressions that are not necessarily well-defined: the "Buenos Aires' conurbation" (Conurbano Bonaerense), the "Greater Buenos Aires Agglomeration" (Aglomerado Gran Buenos Aires), and the "Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires" (Área Metropolitana Buenos Aires, AMBA). In colloquial speech, people refer to the "Buenos Aires' conurbation" as the set of municipalities that surround the City of Buenos Aires, and which are mostly populated by working-class or middle-class communities.

 

 

The National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) has defined Greater Buenos Aires. There are three main groups within the Buenos Aires conurbation. The first two groups (24 partidos) comprise the traditional conurbation, or the "conurbation proper", while the third group of six partidos is in the process of becoming fully integrated with the rest.

Fourteen fully urbanized partidos

Ten partidos partially urbanized

Six partidos not yet conurbated

As urbanization continues and the conurbation grows, six additional partially urbanized partidos (totaling 1,062,991 population of as the 2022 census) are now fully connected with the conurbation:

•  
  Berazategui
•  
  Ciudad Evita (La Matanza Partido)
•  
  Florencio Varela
•  
  General San Martín
•  
  Monte Grande (Esteban Echeverría Partido)
•  
  Olivos (Vicente López Partido)
•  
  Quilmes
•  
  Tigre
•  
  Pan-American Expressway, north of Buenos Aires