Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires, also known as the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, refers to the urban agglomeration comprising the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, and the adjacent 24 partidos in the Province of Buenos Aires. Thus, it does not constitute a single administrative unit. The conurbation spreads south, west and north of Buenos Aires city. To the east, the River Plate serves as a natural boundary.
The term is also related to other expressions that are not necessarily well defined: the "Buenos Aires conurbation" ; the "Greater Buenos Aires Agglomeration" ; and the "Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires".
Colloquially, Argentines refer to the Conurbano Bonaerense as the set of 30 counties that surround the City of Buenos Aires and which are mostly populated by working-class or middle-class communities.
History
The term Gran Buenos Aires was first officially used in 1948, when Domingo Mercante, the Governor of Buenos Aires Province, signed a bill delineating as such an area covering 14 municipalities surrounding the City of Buenos Aires.Urban sprawl, especially between 1945 and 1980, created a vast metropolitan area of over 3,800 km² – or 19 times the area of Buenos Aires proper. The 24 suburban partidos grew more than sixfold in population between the 1947 and 2022 censuses – or nearly 2.5% annually, compared to 1.4% for the nation as a whole.
While annual growth for the suburban area slowed to 0.8% between 2010 and 2022, the 12 million inhabitants in the entire 30-county area - plus the City of Buenos Aires - account for a third of the total population of Argentina and generate nearly half of the country's GDP.
As urbanization progressed and the metro area grew in both area and density, six additional partially urbanized partidos were added to the metropolitan area in 2006 by Law 13473 - which also adds neighboring Greater La Plata's 938,287 to the total.
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Definition
The National Institute of Statistics and Censuses has defined Greater Buenos Aires.There are three main groups within the Buenos Aires conurbation. The first two groups comprise the traditional conurbation - or the "conurbation proper" - while the third group of six partidos is in the process of becoming fully integrated with the rest.
;Fourteen fully urbanized partidos
- Avellaneda
- General San Martín
- Hurlingham
- Ituzaingó
- José C. Paz
- Lanús
- Lomas de Zamora
- Malvinas Argentinas
- Morón
- Quilmes
- San Isidro
- San Miguel
- Tres de Febrero
- Vicente López
- Almirante Brown
- Berazategui
- Esteban Echeverría
- Ezeiza
- Florencio Varela
- La Matanza
- Merlo
- Moreno
- San Fernando
- Tigre
The six additional partially urbanized partidos added to the metropolitan area in 2006 by Law 13473 are:
The 2022 Census later included, for statistical purposes, these six outlying partidos :
List of ''partidos''
| Rank | Partido | Seat | 2010 Census | % growth from 2001 Census | 2022 Census | % growth from 2010 Census |
| * | Buenos Aires | 2,890,151 | 4.1 | 3,120,612 | 8.0 | |
| 1 | La Matanza | San Justo | 1,775,816 | 41.5 | 1,837,774 | 3.5 |
| 2 | Lomas de Zamora | Lomas de Zamora | 616,279 | 4.2 | 694,330 | 12.7 |
| 3 | Quilmes | Quilmes | 582,943 | 12.4 | 636,026 | 9.1 |
| 4 | Almirante Brown | Adrogué | 552,902 | 7.2 | 585,852 | 6.0 |
| 5 | Merlo | Merlo | 528,494 | 12.4 | 580,806 | 9.9 |
| 6 | Moreno | Moreno | 452,505 | 18.9 | 574,374 | 26.9 |
| 7 | Florencio Varela | Florencio Varela | 426,005 | 22.1 | 497,818 | 16.9 |
| 8 | Lanús | Lanús | 459,263 | 1.4 | 462,051 | 0.6 |
| 9 | General San Martín | San Martín | 414,196 | 2.8 | 450,335 | 8.7 |
| 10 | Tigre | Tigre | 376,381 | 25.0 | 447,785 | 19.0 |
| 11 | Avellaneda | Avellaneda | 342,677 | 4.2 | 370,939 | 8.2 |
| 12 | Tres de Febrero | Caseros | 340,071 | 1.1 | 366,377 | 7.7 |
| 13 | Berazategui | Berazategui | 324,344 | 12.6 | 360,582 | 11.2 |
| 14 | Malvinas Argentinas | Los Polvorines | 322,375 | 10.9 | 351,788 | 9.1 |
| 15 | Esteban Echeverría | Monte Grande | 300,959 | 23.4 | 339,030 | 12.6 |
| 16 | Morón | Morón | 321,109 | 3.8 | 334,178 | 4.1 |
| 17 | San Miguel | San Miguel | 276,190 | 9.1 | 326,215 | 18.1 |
| 18 | José C. Paz | José C. Paz | 265,981 | 15.5 | 323,918 | 21.8 |
| 19 | San Isidro | San Isidro | 292,878 | 0.5 | 298,777 | 2.0 |
| 20 | Vicente López | Olivos | 269,420 | -1.7 | 283,510 | 5.2 |
| 21 | Ezeiza | Ezeiza | 163,722 | 37.8 | 203,283 | 24.2 |
| 22 | Hurlingham | Hurlingham | 181,241 | 5.2 | 187,122 | 3.2 |
| 23 | Ituzaingó | Ituzaingó | 167,824 | 6.1 | 179,788 | 7.1 |
| 24 | San Fernando | San Fernando | 163,240 | 8.0 | 172,524 | 5.7 |
List of cities
| Rank | City | District | Partido | 2001 Census |
| 1 | Buenos Aires |  |