Rosario
Rosario, officially the Autonomous City of Rosario, is a city in central Argentina, in the south of the province of Santa Fe. Located northwest of Buenos Aires on the west bank of the Paraná River, it is the country's third-most populous city after Buenos Aires and Córdoba. With a growing and important metropolitan area, Greater Rosario has an estimated population of 1,750,000 as of 2020. One of its main attractions includes the neoclassical, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco architecture that has been preserved in hundreds of residences, houses and public buildings. The city is also famous for being the birthplace of Argentine footballer Lionel Messi.
Rosario is the head city of the Rosario Department and is located at the heart of the major industrial corridor in Argentina. The city is a major railroad terminal and the shipping center for north-eastern Argentina. Ships reach the city via the Paraná River, which allows the existence of a port. The Port of Rosario is subject to silting and must be dredged periodically. Exports include wheat, flour, hay, linseed and other vegetable oils, corn, sugar, lumber, meat, hides, and wool. Manufactured goods include flour, sugar, meat products, and other foodstuffs. The Rosario-Victoria Bridge, opened in 2004, spans the Paraná River, connecting Rosario with the city of Victoria, across the Paraná Delta. The city plays a critical role in agricultural commerce, and thus finds itself at the center of a continuing debate over taxes levied on big-ticket agricultural goods such as soy.
Along with Paraná, Rosario is one of the few Argentine cities that cannot point to a particular individual as its founder. The city's patron is the "Virgin of the Rosary", whose feast day is 7 October.
Toponymy
Rosario owes its name to the devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary, whose image remains in the cathedral, on the same site where the chapel around which the settlement originated once stood.In 1823, the settlement was granted the title of Ilustre y Fiel Villa, and from then on was known as Villa del Rosario. On August 5, 1852, with the support of General Justo José de Urquiza—it was declared a city and thereafter became known as Ciudad del Rosario, Rosario de Santa Fe, or commonly simply Rosario. Later, the word del was replaced by de, and the article el ceased to be used when referring to the city.
During part of the 20th century, the city’s official name was Rosario de Santa Fe. This designation has continued to be used in other provinces of the country to avoid confusion with other localities named Rosario, such as Rosario del Tala, Rosario de Lerma, and Rosario de la Frontera, among others.
History
Early settlement
Even though the city did not have a clear foundation date or any official acknowledgement thereof, most commentators state that Rosario was founded on 7 October 1793 with a local population of 457 inhabitants. Nonetheless, the town was officially declared a city on 3 August 1852, at the time it was known as Pago de los Arroyos, a reference to the several small rivers that traverse the southern region of Santa Fe, like the Ludueña Stream, the Saladillo Stream and others, emptying into the Paraná River. In 1689, captain Luís Romero de Piñeda received part of the lands of the Pago de los Arroyos by royal decree, as payment for services to the Spanish Crown. Before that, the area was originally inhabited by various indigenous tribes, some of which lived in reducciones, a type of mission founded by Franciscans. These missions were ultimately attacked and destroyed by hostile tribes of the Chaco region.Romero de Piñeda established the first permanent settlement, an estancia — intended as farmland, not as a town. In 1719, the Jesuits bought another part and established Estancia San Miguel. The area was still so scarcely populated that it had no central authority; it was ruled from the provincial capital, and in turn from Buenos Aires.
In 1724, another colonial settlement was initiated by Santiago de Montenegro, who set up a mill, drew plans for the future town, built a chapel, and was appointed mayor in 1751. The area of control of this local government extended northward from today's Rosario; only in 1784 was it divided into two smaller jurisdictions.
On February 27, 1812, General Manuel Belgrano raised the newly created Argentine flag on the shores of the Paraná, for the first time. Because of this, Rosario is known as the "Cradle of the Argentine Flag". The National Flag Memorial marks the occasion.
19th century
The province of Santa Fe suffered greatly from the civil war that afflicted Argentina after 1820. Demographic growth was relatively slow. During this period, Rosario was a small settlement and a stop on the way from the city of Santa Fe to Buenos Aires. In 1823, it was elevated to the category of "village". Charles Darwin travelled through the area in 1832 and described Rosario as "a large town" with about 2,000 residents. In 1841, a decree of the caudillo and Governor of Buenos Aires, Juan Manuel de Rosas, banned navigation of the Paraná and Paraguay rivers to non-Argentine vessels, and thus shut off the Port of Rosario to foreign trade.On 25 December 1851, a small group of locals and the military guard of the city declared their support for the rival caudillo Justo José de Urquiza. As a reward for their participation in the Battle of Caseros, triumphant Urquiza wrote to the governor of Santa Fe on 9 June 1852 asking for Rosario to be granted city status. Governor Domingo Crespo justified the request at the provincial legislative body, marking the geographically strategic position of the town for national and international trade, and on 5 August, Rosario was formally declared a city.
Urquiza opened up the river for free international trade. The city's economy and population expanded at an accelerated rate. By 1880, Rosario had become the first export outlet of Argentina. During the last 15 years of the 19th century, the city more than doubled its population, in part due to immigration. By 1887 it had about 50,000 inhabitants, of whom 40% were European immigrants, who brought new ideas from Europe and began to turn Rosario into a politically progressive city.
During the second half of the 19th century, there was a movement promoting that the city of Rosario become the capital of the republic. Ovidio Lagos, founder of the oldest Argentine newspaper, La Capital, was one of the strongest proponents of this idea. Rosario was indeed declared the federal capital on three occasions, but each time the law was vetoed by the Executive Branch. In 1911, the French-owned railway company Ferrocarril Rosario y Puerto Belgrano opened a line between Rosario and Puerto Belgrano, Argentina's main naval base. By 1926, Rosario had 407,000 inhabitants, 47% of them foreign, many coming from Europe in the wake of World War I.
Modern history
In 1969 workers and students took to the streets and organized strikes in what has been dubbed the "Rosariazo" against the dictatorship. A few years later, in 1976, the military dictatorship made hundreds of dissident citizens "disappear" in what is known as the Dirty War.In 1983, Argentina returned to democratic rule, but in 1989, hyperinflation caused the economic collapse of the country. In Rosario there were riots and looting episodes. Under the Menem administration, the situation worsened as the industrial sector of the city was dismantled by foreign competition, and agricultural exports stagnated. In 1995, unemployment in the area reached 21.1% and a large part of Rosario's population fell below the poverty line.
Since the recovery of the national economy that followed the 2001 collapse, Rosario's economic situation has improved. The boom in agricultural exports has caused a large increase in consumer spending and investment. The Socialist Party has won mayoral races in the city in every election since Councilman Héctor Cavallero's 1989 election. Cavallero's successor, Hermes Binner, was elected Governor of Santa Fe in 2007 and became the runner-up in the 2011 presidential election on the FAP ticket. Mayor Miguel Lifschitz's administration, elected in 2007, took advantage of the economic boom to invest heavily in public works as well as in public health. Mayor Mónica Fein became, in 2011, the first Socialist woman elected mayor in Argentine history.
After the 1990s, Rosario became a major city of the illegal drug trade in Argentina, headed by a drug dealing family called "Los Monos". Early during 2018, it was estimated by national news sources that a turf war between local drug gangs was costing an average of one life every twenty five hours.
On 14 March 2020, the first confirmed case of the coronavirus pandemic appeared in the city.
Between 2021 and 2022, the city of Rosario was affected by smoke from intensive burning in the wetlands of the Paraná Delta, originating in the Department of Victoria, Province of Entre Ríos, on the border with Santa Fe. Environmental organisations also held various demonstrations in different parts of the city to demand a Wetlands Law, including blockades of the Rosario-Victoria Bridge.
In April 2022, pandemic restrictions began to be lifted, the use of face masks was no longer mandatory, entertainment venues such as nightclubs and cinemas reopened, large religious events were held, and the South American Games were held in Independence Park. On 18 December 2022, following Argentina's victory in the FIFA World Cup, a massive crowd estimated at more than 700,000 fans gathered around the National Flag Monument to celebrate the victory.
By March 2024, a series of murders had taken place in the town. It began on the 5th with the murder of a taxi driver, followed by the murder of another taxi driver the next day. Both incidents occurred in the south of the town, causing taxi services to be suspended. Then, on the 7th, a bus driver was shot and seriously wounded, dying days later at HECA hospital. On the same day, shots were fired at the town's 15th police station. On Friday the 8th, the Women's Day march was suspended, and raids were carried out in different parts of the city. Then, on 9 March, a petrol station attendant was murdered in cold blood at the petrol station on Mendoza Street at 7600. A bus strike was announced, and petrol stations did not operate at night. All these events are related to drug gangs operating in the city. On Monday 11th, the Minister of National Security, Patricia Bullrich, arrived in the city of Rosario, announcing the deployment of 450 gendarmerie officers.
A ordinance aproved by the Municipal Council in 27 November 2025, maked the city autonomus and no longer part of Santa Fé Province. A Stuatory Convention for 2027 was convened for the redaction the city Constitution