Córdoba (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkoɾðoβa]) is a city in central Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about 700 km (435 mi) northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province and the second-most populous city in Argentina after Buenos Aires, with about 1.6 million urban inhabitants according to the 2020 census.
Córdoba was founded as a settlement on 6 July 1573 by Spanish conquistador Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera, who named it after the Spanish city of Córdoba. It was one of the early Spanish colonial capitals of the region of present-day Argentina (the oldest Argentine city is Santiago del Estero, founded in 1553). The National University of Córdoba, the oldest university of the country, was founded in 1613 by the Jesuit Order, and Córdoba has earned the nickname La Docta ("the learned").
Córdoba has many historical monuments preserved from the period of Spanish colonial rule, especially buildings of the Catholic Church such as the Jesuit Block (Spanish: Manzana Jesuítica), declared in 2000 as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, which consists of a group of buildings dating from the 17th century, including the Colegio Nacional de Monserrat and the colonial university campus. The campus belongs today to the historical museum of the National University of Córdoba, which has been the second-largest university in the country since the early years of the 20th century (after the University of Buenos Aires), in number of students, faculty, and academic programs. Córdoba is also known for its historical movements, such as the Cordobazo of May 1969 and La Reforma del '18 (known as the University Revolution in English) of 1918.
In 1570 the Viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo, entrusted the Spanish settler Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera with the task of founding and populating a settlement in the Punilla Valley. Cabrera sent an expedition of 48 men to the territory of the Comechingones. He divided the principal column that entered through the north of the provincial territory at Villa María.
The expedition of one hundred men set foot on what today is Córdoba on 24 June 1573. Cabrera called the nearby river San Juan (today Suquía). The settlement was officially founded on 6 July of the same year and named Córdoba de la Nueva Andalucía, possibly in honour of ancestors of the founder's wife, who originally came from Córdoba, Spain. The foundation of the city took place on the left bank of the river on the advice of Francisco de Torres.
The area was inhabited by aboriginal people called Comechingones, who lived in communities called ayllus. After four years, having repelled attacks by the aborigines, the settlement's authorities moved it to the opposite bank of the Suquía River in 1577. The Lieutenant Governor at the time, Don Lorenzo Suárez de Figueroa, planned the first layout of the city as a grid of 70 blocks. Once the city core had been moved to its current location, the population stabilized. The city's economy blossomed due to trade with the cities in the north.
In 1599, the religious order of the Jesuits arrived in the settlement. They established a Novitiate in 1608 and, in 1610, the Colegio Maximo, which became the University of Córdoba in 1613 (today National University of Córdoba), the fourth-oldest in the Americas. The local Jesuit church remains one of the oldest buildings in South America and contains the Monserrat Secondary School, a church, and residential buildings. To maintain such a project, the Jesuits operated five Reducciones in the surrounding fertile valleys, including Caroya, Jesús María, Santa Catalina, Alta Gracia and Candelaria.
The farm and the complex (started in 1615, had to be vacated by the Jesuits following the 1767 decree by King Charles III of Spain that expelled the Jesuit order from the continent. Franciscans then operated the Jesuits' foundations until 1853, when the Jesuits returned to the Americas. Nevertheless, the university and the high-school were nationalized a year later.
Each estancia has its own church and set of buildings, around which towns grew, such as Alta Gracia, the closest to the Block.
In 1776, King Carlos III created the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, in which Córdoba stays in 1785 as the Government Intendency of Córdoba, including the current territories of the provinces of Córdoba, La Rioja and the region of Cuyo.
According to the 1760 census, the population of the city was 22,000 inhabitants. During the May Revolution in 1810, the widespread opinion of the most notable citizens was of continuing respecting the orders of Fernando VII, attitude assumed by the local authorities, which led to the Liniers Counter-revolution. This position was not shared by the Dean Gregorio Funes, who was adhering to the revolutionary ideas, beside supporting contact with Manuel Belgrano and Juan José Castelli.
In March 1816, the Argentine Congress met in Tucumán for an independence resolution. Córdoba sent Eduardo Pérez Bulnes, Jerónimo Salguero de Cabrera, José Antonio Cabrera, and to the Canon of the cathedral Michael Calixto of the Circle, all of them of autonomous position.
The 1820s belonged to caudillos, since the country was in full process of formation. Until 1820 a central government taken root in Buenos Aires existed, but the remaining thirteen provinces felt that after 9 July 1816 what had happened it was simply a change of commander. The Battle of Cepeda pitted the commanders of the Littoral against the inland forces.
Finally, the Federales obtained the victory, for what the country remained since then integrated by 13 autonomous provinces, on the national government having been dissolved.
From this way the period known like about the Provincial Autonomies began. From this moment the provinces tried to create a federal system that was integrating them without coming to good port, this mainly for the regional differences of every province.
Two Córdoba figures stood out in this period: Governor Juan Bautista Bustos, who was an official of the Army of the North and in 1820 was supervised by the troops quartered in Arequito, a town near Córdoba, and his ally and later enemy, General José María Paz. In 1821, Bustos repelled the invasion of Córdoba on the part of Francisco Ramírez and his Chilean ally, General José Miguel Carrera. The conflict originated in a dispute with the power system that included the provinces of Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Santa Fe; according to the 1822 census the total population of Córdoba was of 11,552 inhabitants.
At the end of the 19th century the process of national industrialization began with the height of the economic agro-exporting model, principally of meats and cereals. This process is associated with the European immigration who began to settle the city, generally possessing the education and enterprising capacity appropriate for the development of industry. The majority of these European immigrants came from Italy (initially from Piedmont, Veneto and Lombardy; later from Campania and Calabria), and Spain (mostly Galicians and Basques)
At the beginning of the 20th century the city had 90,000 inhabitants. The city's physiognomy changed considerably following the construction of new avenues, walks and public squares, as well as the installation of an electrified tram system, in 1909. In 1918, Córdoba was the epicentre of a movement known as the University Reform, which then spread to the rest of the Universities of the country, Americas and Spain.