Argentina is often described as a macrocephalic country, [70] due to the high economic and population concentration in Greater Buenos Aires, the urban agglomeration formed around the city of Buenos Aires. With its more than twelve million residents, it is the main urban center of the country, concentrating 33% of the population and 40% of the gross product in just 0.14% of the territory. Greater Córdoba and Greater Rosario are the largest urban areas after Greater Buenos Aires, but they have a population almost ten times smaller.
Demography
The population of Argentina according to the census of November 2001 amounted to 36,260,130 residents. The subsequent population correction for coverage and census reconciliation carried out by INDEC brought the population to 37,282,970 residents in the same period. The estimated population for 2009 is 40,134,425 residents [71] , with an average density of 14 residents / km² (without considering the claimed surface of the Argentine Antarctic and the South Atlantic Islands).
The population growth rate has followed a downward slope in recent decades; thus, in the period 1980-1991, the average annual growth rate was 14.7 ‰ (1.47%) and in the decade 1991-2001, 12.5 ‰ (1.25%). [72]
The country recorded at the beginning of the twentieth century high rates of population growth due to immigration processes coupled with a high vegetative growth during this century was stabilized and continued decline (except for the five year period 1970 – 1975). Since the 1960s, total growth has been the result of the difference between the crude birth rate and the crude death rate.
Due to the evolution of mortality rates and the international migratory flow, the masculinity index has shown a constant decline since the middle of the 20th century: from 105 men for every 100 women to 94.9 for every 100 in 2001. Of the total of the population (according to the 2001 census) 51.3% are women and 48.7% are men. [71]
Historically, and due to relatively low birth rates and population growth compared to other Latin American countries, Argentina is the third oldest country in the region, after Uruguay and Cuba. In 2001, the population between 0 and 14 years old was 27.7% and the population between 15 and 64 years old was 62.4%. The population aged 60 and over reached 13.4% and the population aged 65 or over, 9.9%.
The country has been the recipient of important immigration flows that continue to this day, reaching a peak in the period 1870 – 1930, and has important foreign communities, mainly Paraguayans, Bolivians, Italians and Spaniards. As of the mid-1960s, considerable emigration flows began to register, which are due to the brain drain process, the political persecutions that existed until 1983 and the repeated economic crises, the main destinations being Spain, Italy, the United States and the United States. Mexico [73] . The 2001 censusHe recorded a negative migration balance in the period 1995 – 2000, a process that INDEC has estimated that continued during the five – year period 2000- 2005, reversing the historical surplus of the country.
According to the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program, compiled based on 2007 data and published in 2009, Argentina has a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.866. Globally, it is ranked 49th out of the 182 states that participate in the ranking, classified as a country of high human development.
Urbanization
In 1914 the urban population outnumbered the rural for the first time. One of the main factors in the rapid growth of urban areas was the great European immigration that was developing the main urban centers of the country such as Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Rosario. [81] In 1960 fifteen cities had a population of more than 100,000 residents, where 71% of the urban population lived. Among these cities, Buenos Aires stands out, the only one that exceeded 100,000 residents in 1869 and that constitutes one of the most outstanding examples of primacy in urbanization. [82] At that time, the urban areas of Argentina constituted 59% of the population, the same as in the United States, slightly higher than Oceania (53%) and below England, a country that led the percentage of urban conglomerations since the beginning from the 19th century, with 69 percent. [83]
In 1970, Argentina reached 78.5% in its urbanization index and in 1975 it reached 80.7%. In 1990 86.9% of the population lived in urban areas, a process driven since the 1950s, as in all of Latin America, by the flow of internal immigration from rural areas to urban areas due to economic and social conditions unfavorable. [84] The 2001 Census established that the country’s urbanization had reached 89.3% of the total population.226 Argentina has one of the earliest urbanization processes among Latin American countries.
Religion
In Argentina there is a wide freedom of religion guaranteed by “Article 14” of the National Constitution, although the State recognizes a preeminent character to the Catholic Church, which has a different legal status with respect to other churches and confessions: according to the Argentine Constitution (article 2), the National State must uphold it and according to the Civil Code, it is legally assimilable to a non-state public law entity. It is, however, a differentiated regime that does not entail its official status as the religion of the Republic. [n 4] Argentina and the Holy See They have signed a concordat that regulates the relations between the State and the Catholic Church. As a country located in South America according to FRANCISCOGARDENING.COM, 88% of Argentines have been baptized as Catholics. [92][93] However, the percentage of the country’s residents who consider themselves to be practitioners is between 69% and 78%, of which a quarter never attend church. [94] 12% of the population profess evangelism, 12% consider themselves agnostic, 4% consider themselves atheist, 1.5% Muslim, and 1% Jewish. There are also widespread popular religious beliefs, such as the cult of Difunta Correa, [95] Mother María, [96] Pancho Sierra, [97] Gauchito Gil. [98] or to Ceferino Namuncurá. [99] The latter was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2007.
