La Plata
La Plata is the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was founded in 1882 by Dardo Rocha, tailor made to replace the city of Buenos Aires as the capital of the province with the same name.
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2 Position 3 Climate 4 Population 5 Language 6 Map (schematic) |
In 1880 the city of Buenos Aires became the Federal capital, and the governor of the province at that time, the lawyer Dardo Rocha, decided to build an entirely new city as the new provincial capital. Pedro Benoit designed a city layout based on a rationalist conception of urban centres. 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 five by five blocks in length. Except for the diagonals, all streets are absolutely regular (running either perfectly parallel or perpendicular to each other) and are numbered. The city was officially founded on November 19, 1882. An international competition was held from which the designs for the most important buildings were chosen. These include works by Italians (e.g. Palace of the Governor), Germans (e.g. City Hall) and Argentineans. Electric street lighting was installed in 1884 (the first in Latin America).
La Plata is also important in terms of its University, founded in 1897 and nationalised in 1905.
Coordinates: 39° 55' latitude south - 57° 10' longitude west
Usually warm and humid.
Total: 541.905 Masculine: 262.224 Feminine: 279.681 Density: 585 hab/km2 History and brief description
Position
Surface: 940.38 km2 Climate
Average temperature: 16.3° C
Average clear days: 126 Rain: 1023 Mn
Average humidity: 78% Population
