MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine population grows 10.6% in a decade, totals 40.09 million

Indec director Norberto Itzcovich revealed the preliminary results from Santa Cruz

Argentina has 40.09 million inhabitants, up 10.6% from the 2001 figure of 36.2 million, according to preliminary results from the 2010 National Census of Population, Households and Homes released on Friday.

The greatest population surge, 28.4%, took place in the southern province of Santa Cruz, (272.524) birthplace of the late ex-President Nestor Kirchner, where on Friday the first statistics were announced. The census was taken on October 27, the day the 60 year old former president died of a heart attack.

The mortality rate fell from 16.3 per 1,000 people in 2001 to the present figure of 12.1 out of 1,000, according to Roberto Itzcovich, technical director of Indec, the National Statistics and Census Institute.

The census also showed that there are 95.4 men for every 100 women and 14.29 million households across the country.

Buenos Aires province is the most densely populated in Argentina with a population of 15.59 million inhabitants, representing 38.9% of the country’s total, while the city of Buenos Aires is home to 2.89 million.

Of the 15.59 million from the province of Buenos Aires, 9.91 million live in the 24 counties surrounding the federal capital and which make the so called Great Buenos Aires.

The City of Buenos Aires registered a slight increase over 2001 (2.78 million) but is still far from the 2.97 million from the 1991 census. The city also registers the highest population density in the country, 14.185 per square kilometer.

The second most populated city is Cordoba with 1.33 million residents followed closely by Rosario a grains and oil-seeds hub in the province of Santa Fe with 1.2 million people.

Some 650,000 officials were involved in taking the census, which for the first time gathered information on citizens of African descent in the country and on the number of same-sex couples, following the law allowing them to marry that was passed by Congress in July.