Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. The term is used in connection with national population and housing censuses; the United Nations defines the essential features of population and housing censuses as "individual enumeration, universality within a defined territory and defined periodicity", recommends that population censuses be taken at least every 10 years. United Nations recommendations cover census topics to be collected, official definitions and other useful information to co-ordinate international practice; the word is of Latin origin: during the Roman Republic, the census was a list that kept track of all adult males fit for military service. The modern census is essential to international comparisons of any kind of statistics, censuses collect data on many attributes of a population, not just how many people there are. Censuses began as the only method of collecting national demographic data, are now part of a larger system of different surveys.
Although population estimates remain an important function of a census, including the geographic distribution of the population, statistics can be produced about combinations of attributes e.g. education by age and sex in different regions. Current administrative data systems allow for other approaches to enumeration with the same level of detail but raise concerns about privacy and the possibility of biasing estimates. A census can be contrasted with sampling in which information is obtained only from a subset of a population. Modern census data are used for research, business marketing, planning, as a baseline for designing sample surveys by providing a sampling frame such as an address register. Census counts are necessary to adjust samples to be representative of a population by weighting them as is common in opinion polling. Stratification requires knowledge of the relative sizes of different population strata which can be derived from census enumerations. In some countries, the census provides the official counts used to apportion the number of elected representatives to regions.
In many cases, a chosen random sample can provide more accurate information than attempts to get a population census. A census is construed as the opposite of a sample as its intent is to count everyone in a population rather than a fraction. However, population censuses rely on a sampling frame to count the population; this is the only way to be sure that everyone has been included as otherwise those not responding would not be followed up on and individuals could be missed. The fundamental premise of a census is that the population is not known and a new estimate is to be made by the analysis of primary data; the use of a sampling frame is counterintuitive as it suggests that the population size is known. However, a census is used to collect attribute data on the individuals in the nation; this process of sampling marks the difference between historical census, a house to house process or the product of an imperial decree, the modern statistical project. The sampling frame used by census is always an address register.
Thus it is not known how many people there are in each household. Depending on the mode of enumeration, a form is sent to the householder, an enumerator calls, or administrative records for the dwelling are accessed; as a preliminary to the dispatch of forms, census workers will check any address problems on the ground. While it may seem straightforward to use the postal service file for this purpose, this can be out of date and some dwellings may contain a number of independent households. A particular problem is what are termed'communal establishments' which category includes student residences, religious orders, homes for the elderly, people in prisons etc; as these are not enumerated by a single householder, they are treated differently and visited by special teams of census workers to ensure they are classified appropriately. Individuals are counted within households and information is collected about the household structure and the housing. For this reason international documents refer to censuses of housing.
The census response is made by a household, indicating details of individuals resident there. An important aspect of census enumerations is determining which individuals can be counted from which cannot be counted. Broadly, three definitions can be used: de facto residence; this is important to consider individuals who have temporary addresses. Every person should be identified uniquely as resident in one place but where they happen to be on Census Day, their de facto residence, may not be the best place to count them. Where an individual uses services may be more useful and this is at their usual, or de jure, residence. An individual may be represented at a permanent address a family home for students or long term migrants, it is necessary to have a precise definition of residence to decide whether visitors to a country should be included in the population count. This is becoming more important as students travel abroad for education for a period of several years. Other groups causing problems of enumeration are new born babies, people away on holiday, people moving home around census day, people without a fixed address.
People having second homes because of working in another part of the country or retaining a holiday cottage are dif
Argentina
Argentina the Argentine Republic, is a country located in the southern half of South America. Sharing the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, the country is bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Drake Passage to the south. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2, Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the fourth largest in the Americas, the largest Spanish-speaking nation; the sovereign state is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires, the federal capital of the nation as decided by Congress. The provinces and the capital exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; the earliest recorded human presence in modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The Inca Empire expanded to the northwest of the country in Pre-Columbian times; the country has its roots in Spanish colonization of the region during the 16th century.
Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The declaration and fight for independence was followed by an extended civil war that lasted until 1861, culminating in the country's reorganization as a federation of provinces with Buenos Aires as its capital city; the country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with several waves of European immigration radically reshaping its cultural and demographic outlook. The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh wealthiest nation in the world by the early 20th century. Following the Great Depression in the 1930s, Argentina descended into political instability and economic decline that pushed it back into underdevelopment, though it remained among the fifteen richest countries for several decades. Following the death of President Juan Perón in 1974, his widow, Isabel Martínez de Perón, ascended to the presidency, she was overthrown in 1976 by a U.
S.-backed coup which installed a right-wing military dictatorship. The military government persecuted and murdered numerous political critics and leftists in the Dirty War, a period of state terrorism that lasted until the election of Raúl Alfonsín as President in 1983. Several of the junta's leaders were convicted of their crimes and sentenced to imprisonment. Argentina is a prominent regional power in the Southern Cone and Latin America, retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs. Argentina has the second largest economy in South America, the third-largest in Latin America, membership in the G-15 and G-20 major economies, it is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, World Trade Organization, Union of South American Nations, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the Organization of Ibero-American States. Despite its history of economic instability, it ranks second highest in the Human Development Index in Latin America; the description of the country by the word Argentina has been found on a Venetian map in 1536.
In English the name "Argentina" comes from the Spanish language, however the naming itself is not Spanish, but Italian. Argentina means in Italian " of silver, silver coloured" borrowed from the Old French adjective argentine " of silver" > "silver coloured" mentioned in the 12th century. The French word argentine is the feminine form of argentin and derives from argent "silver" with the suffix -in; the Italian naming "Argentina" for the country implies Terra Argentina "land of silver" or Costa Argentina "coast of silver". In Italian, the adjective or the proper noun is used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said l'Argentina; the name Argentina was first given by the Venetian and Genoese navigators, such as Giovanni Caboto. In Spanish and Portuguese, the words for "silver" are plata and prata and " of silver" is said plateado and prateado. Argentina was first associated with the silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the La Plata Basin.
The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to La Argentina, a 1602 poem by Martín del Barco Centenera describing the region. Although "Argentina" was in common usage by the 18th century, the country was formally named "Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata" by the Spanish Empire, "United Provinces of the Río de la Plata" after independence; the 1826 constitution included the first use of the name "Argentine Republic" in legal documents. The name "Argentine Confederation" was commonly used and was formalized in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the country's name as "Argentine Republic", that year's constitutional amendment ruled all the names since 1810 as valid. In the English language the country was traditionally called "the Argentine", mimicking the typical Spanish usage la Argentina and resulting from a mistaken shortening of the fuller name'Argentine Republic'.'The Argentine' fell out of fashion during the mid-to-late 20th century, now the country is referred to as "Argentina".
In the Spanish language "Argentina" is feminine, taking the feminine article "La" as the i
Mendoza, Argentina
Ciudad de Mendoza is the capital of the province of Mendoza in Argentina. It is located in the northern-central part of the province, in a region of foothills and high plains, on the eastern side of the Andes; as of the 2010 census, Mendoza had a population of 115,041 with a metropolitan population of 1,055,679, making Greater Mendoza the fourth largest census metropolitan area in the country. Ruta Nacional 7, the major road running between Buenos Aires and Santiago, runs through Mendoza; the city is a frequent stopover for climbers on their way to Aconcagua and for adventure travelers interested in mountaineering, horse riding and other sports. In the winter, skiers come to the city for easy access to the Andes. Two of the main industries of the Mendoza area are Argentine wine; the region around Greater Mendoza is the largest wine-producing area in Latin America. As such, Mendoza is one of the nine Great Wine Capitals, the city is an emerging enotourism destination and base for exploring the region's hundreds of wineries located along the Argentina Wine Route.
On March 2, 1561, Pedro del Castillo founded the city and named it Ciudad de Mendoza del Nuevo Valle de La Rioja after the governor of Chile, Don García Hurtado de Mendoza. Before the 1560s the area was populated by tribes known as the Puelches; the Huarpes devised a system of irrigation, developed by the Spanish. This allowed for an increase in population; the system is still evident today in the wide trenches, which run along all city streets, watering the 100,000 trees that line every street in Mendoza. It is estimated that fewer than 80 Spanish settlers lived in the area before 1600, but prosperity increased due to the use of indigenous and slave labor, the Jesuit presence in the region; when nearby rivers were tapped as a source of irrigation in 1788 agricultural production increased. The extra revenues generated from this, the ensuing additional trade with Buenos Aires, no doubt led to the creation of the state of Cuyo in 1813 with José de San Martín as governor, it was from Mendoza that San Martín and other Argentinian and Chilean patriots organized the army with which they won the independence of Chile and Peru.
Mendoza suffered a severe earthquake in 1861. The city was rebuilt, incorporating innovative urban designs that would better tolerate such seismic activity. Mendoza was rebuilt with large squares and wider streets and sidewalks than any other city in Argentina. Avenue Bartolomé Mitre and additional small squares are examples of that design. Tourism, wine production, more the exploitation of hard commodities such as oil and uranium ensure Mendoza's status as a key regional center. Important suburbs such as Godoy Cruz, Guaymallén, Las Heras, Luján de Cuyo and Maipú have in recent decades far outpaced the city proper in population. Comprising half the metro population of 212,000 in 1947, these suburbs grew to nearly ⅞ of the total metro area of over 1,000,000 by 2015, making Mendoza the most dispersed metro area in Argentina. Mendoza has several museums, including the Museo Cornelio Moyano, a natural history museum, the Museo del Área Fundacional on Pedro del Castillo Square; the Museo Nacional del Vino, focusing on the history of winemaking in the area, is 17 kilometres southeast of Mendoza in Maipú.
The Casa de Fader, a historic house museum, is an 1890 mansion once home to artist Fernando Fader in nearby Mayor Drummond, 14 kilometres south of Mendoza. The mansion is home to many of the artist's paintings; the Fiesta Nacional de la Vendimia occurs in early March each year. Part of the festivities include a beauty pageant, where 17 beauty queens from each department of Mendoza Province compete, one winner is selected by a panel of about 50 judges; the queen of Mendoza city's department acts as host for the other queens. In 2008, National Geographic listed Mendoza as one of the top 10 historic destinations in the world. Mendoza has a number of universities, including the major Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, as well as University of Mendoza, a branch of Universidad Congreso, Aconcagua University, UTN and Champagnat University. Mendoza is a popular place to learn Spanish, there are a number of Spanish language schools, including Intercultural, Green Fields and SIMA; the city is centered around Plaza Independencia with Avenida Sarmiento running through its center east-west, with the east side pedestrianized.
Other major streets, running perpendicular to Sarmiento, include Bartolomé Mitre, San Martín, 9 de Julio, those running parallel include Colón, Las Heras. Four smaller plazas, San Martín, Chile and España, are located 2 blocks off each corner of Independence Plaza. Unique to Mendoza are the exposed stone ditches small canals, which run alongside many of the roads supplying water to the thousands of trees; the Parque General San Martín was designed by Carlos Thays. Its grounds include the Mendoza Zoological Park and a football stadium, it is the home of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. A view of the city is available from the top of Cerro de la Gloria. Mendoza is 380 km from Santiago, Chile. Gov. Francisco Gabrielli International Airport serves Mendoza, with flights to/from Buenos Aires taking less than 2 hours and less than 1 hour to/from Santi
Semi-arid climate
A semi-arid climate or steppe climate is the climate of a region that receives precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-arid climates, depending on variables such as temperature, they give rise to different biomes. A more precise definition is given by the Köppen climate classification, which treats steppe climates as intermediates between desert climates and humid climates in ecological characteristics and agricultural potential. Semi-arid climates tend to support short or scrubby vegetation and are dominated by either grasses or shrubs. To determine if a location has a semi-arid climate, the precipitation threshold must first be determined. Finding the precipitation threshold involves first multiplying the average annual temperature in °C by 20 adding 280 if 70% or more of the total precipitation is in the high-sun half of the year, or 140 if 30%–70% of the total precipitation is received during the applicable period, or 0 if less than 30% of the total precipitation is so received.
If the area's annual precipitation is less than the threshold but more than half the threshold, it is classified as a BS. Furthermore, to delineate "hot semi-arid climates" from "cold semi-arid climates", there are three used isotherms: Either a mean annual temperature of 18°C, or a mean temperature of 0°C or −3°C in the coldest month, so that a location with a "BS" type climate with the appropriate temperature above whichever isotherm is being used is classified as "hot semi-arid", a location with the appropriate temperature below the given isotherm is classified as "cold semi-arid". Hot semi-arid climates tend to be located in the 20s and 30s latitudes of the in proximity to regions with a tropical savanna or a humid subtropical climate; these climates tend to have hot, sometimes hot and warm to cool winters, with some to minimal precipitation. Hot semi-arid climates are most found around the fringes of subtropical deserts. Hot semi-arid climates are most found in Africa and South Asia. In Australia, a large portion of the Outback surrounding the central desert regions lies within the hot semi-arid climate region.
In South Asia, both India and sections of Pakistan experiences the seasonal effects of monsoons and feature short but well-defined wet seasons, but is not sufficiently wet overall to qualify as a tropical savanna climate. Hot semi-arid climates can be found in Europe, parts of North America, such as in Mexico, areas of the Southwestern United States, sections of South America such as the sertão, the Gran Chaco, on the poleward side of the arid deserts, where they feature a Mediterranean precipitation pattern, with rainless summers and wetter winters. Cold semi-arid climates tend to be located in elevated portions of temperate zones bordering a humid continental climate or a Mediterranean climate, they are found in continental interiors some distance from large bodies of water. Cold semi-arid climates feature warm to hot dry summers, though their summers are not quite as hot as those of hot semi-arid climates. Unlike hot semi-arid climates, areas with cold semi-arid climates tend to have cold winters.
These areas see some snowfall during the winter, though snowfall is much lower than at locations at similar latitudes with more humid climates. Areas featuring cold semi-arid climates tend to have higher elevations than areas with hot semi-arid climates, tend to feature major temperature swings between day and night, sometimes by as much as 20 °C or more in that time frame; these large diurnal temperature variations are seen in hot semi-arid climates. Cold semi-arid climates at higher latitudes tend to have dry winters and wetter summers, while cold semi-arid climates at lower latitudes tend to have precipitation patterns more akin to subtropical climates, with dry summers wet winters, wetter springs and autumns. Cold semi-arid climates are most found in Asia and North America. However, they can be found in Northern Africa, South Africa, sections of South America and sections of interior southern Australia and New Zealand. In climate classification, three isotherms means that delineate between hot and cold semi-arid climates — the 18°C average annual temperature or that of the coldest month, the warm side of the isotherm of choice defining a BSh climate from the BSk on the cooler side.
As a result of this, some areas can have climates that are classified as hot or cold semi-arid depending on the isotherm used. One such location is San Diego, which has cool summers for the latitude due to prevailing winds off the ocean but mild winters. Continental climate Dust Bowl Goyder's Line Köppen climate classification Palliser's Triangle Ustic Wave height
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol, carbon dioxide, heat. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts produce different styles of wine; these variations result from the complex interactions between the biochemical development of the grape, the reactions involved in fermentation, the terroir, the production process. Many countries enact legal appellations intended to define qualities of wine; these restrict the geographical origin and permitted varieties of grapes, as well as other aspects of wine production. Wines not made from grapes include rice wine and fruit wines such as plum, pomegranate and elderberry. Wine has been produced for thousands of years; the earliest known traces of wine are from Georgia and Sicily although there is evidence of a similar alcoholic drink being consumed earlier in China. The earliest known winery is the 6,100-year-old Areni-1 winery in Armenia. Wine reached the Balkans by 4500 BC and was consumed and celebrated in ancient Greece and Rome.
Throughout history, wine has been consumed for its intoxicating effects. Wine has long played an important role in religion. Red wine was associated with blood by the ancient Egyptians and was used by both the Greek cult of Dionysus and the Romans in their Bacchanalia; the earliest archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence for grape wine and viniculture, dating to 6000–5800 BC was found on the territory of modern Georgia. Both archaeological and genetic evidence suggest that the earliest production of wine elsewhere was later having taken place in the Southern Caucasus, or the West Asian region between Eastern Turkey, northern Iran; the earliest evidence of a grape-based fermented drink was found in China, Georgia from 6000 BC, Iran from 5000 BC, Sicily from 4000 BC. The earliest evidence of a wine production facility is the Areni-1 winery in Armenia and is at least 6100 years old. A 2003 report by archaeologists indicates a possibility that grapes were mixed with rice to produce mixed fermented drinks in China in the early years of the seventh millennium BC.
Pottery jars from the Neolithic site of Jiahu, contained traces of tartaric acid and other organic compounds found in wine. However, other fruits indigenous to the region, such as hawthorn, cannot be ruled out. If these drinks, which seem to be the precursors of rice wine, included grapes rather than other fruits, they would have been any of the several dozen indigenous wild species in China, rather than Vitis vinifera, introduced there 6000 years later; the spread of wine culture westwards was most due to the Phoenicians who spread outward from a base of city-states along the Mediterranean coast of what are today Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. The wines of Byblos were exported to Egypt during the Old Kingdom and throughout the Mediterranean. Evidence includes two Phoenician shipwrecks from 750 BC discovered by Robert Ballard, whose cargo of wine was still intact; as the first great traders in wine, the Phoenicians seem to have protected it from oxidation with a layer of olive oil, followed by a seal of pinewood and resin, similar to retsina.
Although the nuragic Sardinians consumed wine before the arrival of the Phoenicians The earliest remains of Apadana Palace in Persepolis dating back to 515 BC include carvings depicting soldiers from Achaemenid Empire subject nations bringing gifts to the Achaemenid king, among them Armenians bringing their famous wine. Literary references to wine are abundant in Homer and others. In ancient Egypt, six of 36 wine amphoras were found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun bearing the name "Kha'y", a royal chief vintner. Five of these amphoras were designated as originating from the king's personal estate, with the sixth from the estate of the royal house of Aten. Traces of wine have been found in central Asian Xinjiang in modern-day China, dating from the second and first millennia BC; the first known mention of grape-based wines in India is from the late 4th-century BC writings of Chanakya, the chief minister of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya. In his writings, Chanakya condemns the use of alcohol while chronicling the emperor and his court's frequent indulgence of a style of wine known as madhu.
The ancient Romans planted vineyards near garrison towns so wine could be produced locally rather than shipped over long distances. Some of these areas are now world-renowned for wine production; the Romans discovered that burning sulfur candles inside empty wine vessels kept them fresh and free from a vinegar smell. In medieval Europe, the Roman Catholic Church supported wine because the clergy required it for the Mass. Monks in France made wine for years. An old English recipe that survived in various forms until the 19th century calls for refining white wine from bastard—bad or tainted bastardo wine; the English word "wine" comes from the Proto-Germanic *winam, an early borrowing from the Latin vinum, "wine" or " vine", itself derived from the Proto-Indo-European stem *win-o-. The earliest attested terms referring to wine are the Mycenaean Greek me-tu-wo ne-wo, meaning "in" or " of the new wine", wo-no-wa-ti-si, meaning "wine garden", written in Linear B inscriptions. Linear B includes, inter alia, an ideogram for wine
Climatic regions of Argentina
Due to its vast size and range of altitudes, Argentina possesses a wide variety of climatic regions, ranging from the hot subtropical region in the north to the cold subantarctic in the far south. Lying between those is the Pampas region, featuring a humid climate. Many regions have different contrasting, microclimates. In general, Argentina has four main climate types: warm, moderate and cold in which the relief features, the latitudinal extent of the country, determine the different varieties within the main climate types. Northern parts of the country are characterized by hot, humid summers with mild, drier winters, seasonal precipitation. Mesopotamia, located in northeast Argentina, has a subtropical climate with no dry season and is characterized by high temperatures and abundant rainfall because of exposure to moist easterly winds from the Atlantic Ocean throughout the year; the Chaco region in the center-north, despite being homogeneous in terms of precipitation and temperature, is the warmest region in Argentina, one of the few natural areas in the world located between tropical and temperate latitudes, not a desert.
Precipitation decreases from east to west in the Chaco region because eastern areas are more influenced by moist air from the Atlantic Ocean than the west, resulting in the vegetation transitioning from forests and marshes to shrubs. Northwest Argentina is predominantly dry and subtropical although its rugged topography results in a diverse climate. Central Argentina, which includes the Pampas to the east, the Cuyo region to the west, has a temperate climate with hot summers and cool, drier winters. In the Cuyo region, the Andes obstruct the path of rain-bearing clouds from the Pacific Ocean. Both factors render the region dry. With a wide range of altitudes, the Cuyo region is climatically diverse, with icy conditions persisting at altitudes higher than 4,000 m; the Pampas is flat and receives more precipitation, averaging 500 mm in the western parts to 1,200 mm in the eastern parts. The weather in the Pampas is variable due to the contrasting air masses and frontal storms that impact the region.
These can generate thunderstorms with intense hailstorms and precipitation, are known to have the most frequent lightning, highest convective cloud tops, in the world. Patagonia, in the south, is arid or semi–arid except in the extreme west where abundant precipitation supports dense forest coverage and permanent snowfields, its climate is classified as temperate to cool temperate with the surrounding oceans moderating temperatures on the coast. Away from the coast, areas on the plateaus have large annual temperature ranges; the influence of the Andes, in conjunction with general circulation patterns, generates one of the strongest precipitation gradients in the world, decreasing to the east. In much of Patagonia precipitation is concentrated in winter with snowfall occurring particularly in the mountainous west and south. One defining characteristic is the strong winds from the west which blow year-round, lowering the perception of temperature, while being a factor in keeping the region arid by favouring evaporation.
In general, Argentina has four main climate types: warm, moderate and cold, all determined by the expanse across latitude, range in altitude, relief features. The vast size, wide range of altitudes, contribute to Argentina's diverse climate. Argentina possesses a wide variety of climatic regions ranging from subtropical in the north to subantarctic in the far south. Lying between those is the Pampas region, which features a mild and humid climate. Under the Köppen climate classification, Argentina has 11 different climate types: Humid Subtropical, moderate oceanic, warm semi-arid, subtropical highland oceanic, warm desert, cold semi–arid, cold desert, moderate Mediterranean, cold oceanic, tundra. There is a wide variety of biomes in the country, including subtropical rain forests, semi-arid and arid regions, temperate plains in the Pampas, cold subantarctic in the south. However, despite the diversity of biomes, about two-thirds of Argentina is semi-arid. Argentina is best divided into six distinct regions reflecting the climatic conditions of the country as a whole.
From north to south, these regions are Northwest, Northeast, Cuyo/Monte and Patagonia. Each climatic region has distinctive types of vegetation. Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, which includes the Antarctic Peninsula and a triangular section extending to the South Pole, delimited by the 25° West and 74° West meridians and the 60° South parallel. However, all claims are suspended by the Antarctic Treaty System, of which Argentina is a founding signatory and permanent consulting member. Argentina claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. However, the United Kingdom exercises de facto control over both the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, both as British Overseas Territories; the region of Mesopotamia includes the provinces of Misiones, Entre Ríos and Corrientes. It lies between the Paraná rivers, which serve as natural borders for the region, it has a humid subtropical climate. Whose main features are high temperatures and abundant rainfall throughout the
Christ the Redeemer of the Andes
Christ the Redeemer of the Andes is a monument high in the Andes at 3,832 metres above mean sea level on the border between Argentina and Chile. It was unveiled on 13 March 1904 as a celebration of the peaceful resolution of the border dispute between the two countries; the Christ of the Andes, a symbol of eternal peace, is believed to have been made from the cannons of war, though some historians regard this as doubtful. Engraved at the feet in Spanish are the words, "Sooner shall these mountains crumble into dust than Chileans and Argentinians break the peace which at the feet of Christ, the Redeemer, they have sworn to maintain." The statue is located at the pass of La Cumbre, the highest point on the old road between Mendoza in Argentina and Santiago de Chile. The pass is known as the Church Pass on the Chilean side and the Bermejo Pass on the Argentine; the nearest major settlements are the Argentine town of Juncal in Chile. The closest village is Las Cuevas; the road climbs 1 km over a sinuous 9 km from Las Cuevas to the pass.
The road is only accessible in summer months. Winter temperatures can reach -30 °C; the road is now principally used as a tourist route to visit the statue, with the main route between the two countries now using the Cristo Redentor Tunnel at the foot of the climb. At the beginning of the 20th century, Pope Leo XIII wrote a series of papal encyclicals calling for peace and harmony and for devotion to Christ the Redeemer. At the same time and Chile were coming close to armed conflict over an ongoing dispute over the location of the border; the bishop of Cuyo, monsignor Marcelino del Carmen Benavente, promised to erect a statue of Christ the Redeemer to remind the parties of Christ's message of peace. The 7 m-high bronze statue was subsequently made by Buenos Aires sculptor Mateo Alonso, was kept for a period on show in the patio of the Lacordaire School of the Dominican Order in Buenos Aires; as the countries slipped closer to war, Ángela Oliveira Cézar de Costa, a well-connected society lady who led a Christian group at the school, had the idea of taking the statue to the Andes in the event of peace as a symbol of unity between the two nations.
She had particular cause for concern as her brother was an Argentine Army general preparing for conflict at the frontier. As a friend of the President of Argentina, Julio Roca, she was able to gain the interest of both countries, she would be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In May 1902 there was a diplomatic breakthrough and Argentina and Chile came to peaceful agreement; the plan for the statue progressed and Oliveira Cézar de Costa and Bishop Benavente prepared to move the statue to the pass of Cumbre del Bermejo, which José de San Martín had used in 1817 to cross the Andes and lead the liberation of Chile. In 1904, the Christ was moved in pieces 1,200 km by train and was raised up the mountains by mule. On 15 February 1904 a 6 m-high granite pedestal designed by Molina Civit was completed and the original sculptor Alonso directed the piecing together of the bronze statue, it was erected with the figure facing the line of the border, standing on a globe with South America prominent, his left hand holding a cross and his right raised in blessing.
On 13 March 1904, 3,000 Chileans and Argentines climbed to the summit despite the inhospitable conditions and watched the two armies, only a short time before ready to do battle with one another, firing gun salutes together. President Roca of Argentina and President Germán Riesco of Chile were unable to attend but their foreign ministers were present, along with the Archbishop of Buenos Aires and the bishops of Cuyo and Ancud, Chile. Two plaques were unveiled celebrating the friendship between the two countries. One is inscribed "Sooner shall these mountain crags crumble to dust than Chile and Argentina shall break this peace which at the feet of Christ the Redeemer they have sworn to maintain." In 1916 the cross of the statue was remade, the original having succumbed to the difficult climate conditions. The original cross of bronze was made into commemorative medals. Various further plaques were added over the years. A major repair was undertaken by the Argentine Province of Mendoza in 1993 when the statue was in great disrepair, as well as nearby buildings, used as a meteorological station.
In 2004, the centenary of the statue was celebrated in a ceremony at the statue attended by President Néstor Kirchner of Argentina and Ricardo Lagos of Chile. They reaffirmed the friendship between the two countries; the statue was declared a National Historic Monument of Argentina. Cristo Redentor has a dry-summer tundra climate with rainless summers and cold, snowy winters. Paso Libertadores Christ the Redeemer and his two versions Acto conmemoratorio con motivo de cumplirse 100 años de su inauguración
