ARGENTINA

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a South American country, constituted as a federation of twenty-three provinces and an autonomous city. It is second in size on the continent to Brazil and eighth in the world. Argentina occupies a continental surface area of 2,766,890 sq km (1,068,302 sq mi) between the Andes mountain range in the west and the southern Atlantic Ocean in the east and south.

It is bordered by Paraguay and Bolivia in the north, Brazil and Uruguay in the northeast, and Chile in the west and south. The country claims the British controlled territories of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Argentina also claims 969,464 sq km (374,312 sq mi) of Antarctica, known as Argentine Antarctica, overlapping other claims made by Chile and the United Kingdom.

MISSIONARIES:

Masters, Ray & Virginia

HISTORY:

European explorers arrived in 1516. Spain established a permanent colony in 1580. During the early part of this period it was largely a country of Spanish immigrants and their descendants, known as creoles. Descendants of African slaves were also present in significant numbers. Indigenous peoples inhabited much of the rest of Argentina. Formal independence from Spain was declared on July 9, 1816.

Foreign investment and immigration from Europe led to the adoption of modern agricultural techniques. From 1880 to 1916, Argentina enjoyed increasing prosperity, prominence and became one of the top 10 richest countries in the world, through an agricultural export-led economy.

From the 1950s to 1970s, soft military and weak civilian administrations traded power. During those years the economy grew strongly and poverty decreased. At the same time political violence continued to escalate.

The armed forces took control of the government until democracy was restored in 1983. The 1990s began with hyperinflation. Despite reforms that contributed to significant increases in investment and growth with stable prices through most of the 1990s, the peso was tied to the dollar at an artificially high rate that could only be maintained by flooding the market with dollars. As a result the foreign debt increased enormously and state companies and services were privatized. The total opening up of the market to foreign goods, which up until then were produced locally, resulted in the collapse of local industry.

In 1998 a period of profound economic recession began. This was a direct result of the economic measures which dominated the decade of the 90's and which produced a false sense of stability and well being. With a more competitive and flexible exchange rate, the country implemented new policies based on re-industrialization, import substitution, increased exports, and consistent fiscal and trade surpluses. By the end of 2002 the economy began to stabilize, mainly thanks to the soybean and other cereals' boom and dirty flotation of the exchange rates.

Currently, Argentina is enjoying a period of economic growth. In 2007 Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, was elected president, becoming the first woman to be elected president of Argentina.

RELIGION:

Around 93% of Argentineans declare themselves Roman Catholic. Protestantism, Mormonism, Judaism, and Islam each maintain a small percentage of the population, and many people remain agnostic.