The term
Gran Buenos Aires ("Greater 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 (1,500 mi²) – or 19 times the area of Buenos Aires proper. The 24 suburban
partidos (counties) 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 (3 million) - account for a third of the total
population of Argentina and generate nearly half (48%) of the country's GDP. Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.7) id:sfondo value:rgb(1,1,1) ImageSize = width:500 height:auto barincrement:30 PlotArea = left:40 bottom:40 top:20 right:20 DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:12000 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal AlignBars = late ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:1000 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:500 start:0 BackgroundColors = canvas:sfondo PlotData= color:skyblue width:20 shift:(5,-5) fontsize:M anchor:till bar:1869 from:0 till:42 text:42000 bar:1895 from:0 till:118 text:118000 bar:1914 from:0 till:458 text:458217 bar:1947 from:0 till:1741 text:1741338 bar:1960 from:0 till:3772 text:3772411 bar:1970 from:0 till:5380 text:5380447 bar:1980 from:0 till:6843 text:6843201 bar:1991 from:0 till:7953 text:7952624 bar:2001 from:0 till:8684 text:8684437 bar:2010 from:0 till:9917 text:9916715 bar:2022 from:0 till:10865 text:10865182 TextData= pos:(35,20) fontsize:S text:"Source: INDEC" ==Definition==