MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

36 million Argentines

The Argentine population according to preliminary data from the November 2001 national Census numbers 36,223,947, an 11% increase over the previous 1991 census, of which 51,22% women and 48,77% men.

Tierra del Fuego is the province that experienced the greatest demographic expansion in the ten years span, 45,54%, followed by La Rioja, San Luis, Salta and Santa Cruz.

In the other extreme the provinces with less growth are led by Santa Fe with a 7,10% expansion and closely behind Rio Negro, Buenos Aires and Cordoba, all of them involved in intensive farming and/or industry.

Similarly to what is happening in Western cities there's a tendency for people to live in the countryside.

Buenos Aires, the capital, actually has less population than ten years ago, 196,631 people less equivalent to a 6,63% drop.

"Big cities are less attractive and there is a resident retraction", remarked Alejandro Giusti, Director of the 2001 census.

However the 24 counties out of town in the province of Buenos Aires kept growing and have a population density of 2,392,5 people per square kilometer, compared with 16,9 residents in the farming districts.

Actually those 24 counties in Buenos Aires province concentrate 24% of the total Argentine population, and if the whole provincial territory is taken into account it adds up to 38%. That is four out of ten Argentines live in the Buenos Aires capital and province area, making it the most important electoral circumscription of the country.

Buenos Aires, capital federal, has a population density of 13,843 per square kilometer, and in the other extreme Santa Cruz in Patagonia, 0,8 residents per square kilometer.

But comparing overall numbers with the previous decade, the rate of population growth almost halved, from 19,6% between 1981 and 1991, to 11% the following decade.