Greater Buenos Aires 5.3

Gran Buenos Aires is the urban agglomeration comprising the autonomous city of Buenos Aires and the adjacent 24 partidos over 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.Urban sprawl, especially between 1945 and 1980, created a vast conurbation of 9,910,282 inhabitants in the 24 conurbated partidos, as of 2010, and a total of 12,801,365 including the City of Buenos Aires, a third of the total population of Argentina and generating more than half of the country's GDP.HistoryThe term Gran Buenos Aires was first officially used in 1948, when Governor of Buenos Aires Province Domingo Mercante signed a bill delineating as such an area covering 14 municipalities surrounding the City of Buenos Aires. 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" .DefinitionThe National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) has defined Greater Buenos Aires. There are three main groups within the Buenos Aires' Conurbation. The first two groups (24 partidos) comprise the traditional conurbation, or the "conurbation proper". The third group of six partidos is in process of becoming fully integrated with the rest.