Mar de Ajó is a coastal city in

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, and is located in the southern end of the seaside La Costa Partido (the Coast District). The region is known as the Tuju Corner (Rincón del Tuyú).

Etymology

It owes its name to a word used by the Guarani aborigines who inhabited the area, whose meaning is ''Soft Mud''. During the arrival in 1580 of the Paraguayan

Hernando Arias de Saavedra Hernando Arias de Saavedra (10 September 1561 – 1634), commonly known as Hernandarias, was a soldier and politician of Spanish Criollo peoples, criollo ancestry. He was the first person born in the Americas to become a governor of a European c ...

to the shores of the mouth of the

Río de la Plata The Río de la Plata (; ), also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda, Colonia, Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean and ...

with the Atlantic Ocean, his expedition made use of the collaboration of a group of evangelized Guarani indigenous people, who identified this area with the word ''Tuju'', a term in Guarani that indicated the presence of white mud on the coasts and bottom of the river, for this reason, this place ended up being known as the Rincón del Tuyú. There's the Ria Ajó, which was identified by the Guarani with the term ''Ajo'', which alluded to the soft white mud of its bed, which made the terrain unstable when it came to traversing it on foot. For this reason, the estuary began to be known as Ría Ajó by the Spanish.

History and overview

Named for the original ''Partido de Ajó'' district established by Governor

Juan Manuel de Rosas Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rozas y López de Osornio (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confedera ...

in 1839, the fishing village became of interest to tourism during the 1920s, when district Mayor Jorge Gibson graded the area's beaches. The town was officially established on December 21, 1935, and in 1936, its

pier A pier is a raised structure that rises above a body of water and usually juts out from its shore, typically supported by piling, piles or column, pillars, and provides above-water access to offshore areas. Frequent pier uses include fishing, b ...

was completed; measuring 270 m (886 ft), the Mar de Ajó Pier is the largest of the five in the La Costa District. Mar de Ajó grew to become the most populous of the thirteen La Costa District municipalities, and rivals

San Clemente del Tuyú San Clemente del Tuyú is an Argentina, Argentine town in the ''La Costa Partido, Partido de la Costa'' district of the Province of Buenos Aires. History Noticed by Ferdinand Magellan in 1520, who gave nearby Cape San Antonio, Argentina, Cape S ...

, the northernmost La Costa town, in tourist activity. Renewed growth in the 1990s led to the establishment of the Universidad Atlántida Argentina in 1994, and a

casino A casino is a facility for gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shops, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos also host live entertainment, such as stand-up comedy, conce ...

in 1996. Other notable installations include the Rubén Luis Di Palma Regional Racetrack (among the venues of the

TC2000 The TC2000 (''Turismo Competición 2000'', formerly ''Súper TC2000'') is a touring car racing series held in Argentina since 1979. Rules Prior to 2012, engines of up to were allowed, with only limited modifications from standard engines ...

rally), the Historical Museum and Archives (featuring

glyptodon ''Glyptodon'' (; ) is a genus of glyptodont, an extinct group of large, herbivorous armadillos, that lived from the Pliocene, around 3.2 million years ago, to the early Holocene, around 11,000 years ago, in South America. It is one of, if not th ...

s and other

cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

era fossils), the Parish of Santa Margarita María de Alacoque, and the ship graveyard at Nueva Atlantissite of the shipwreck of numerous 19th-century merchant vessels, notably the ''Margaretha'', an Imperial German ship that ran aground in 1880, and whose remains appear during low tide. The town has a permanent population of 25,520 inhabitants and an area of approximately 35 square kilometers.Mar de Ajo, Información General
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Notable personalities

* Norberto Gomez Barroche, Argentine professional footballer.

Gallery

File:Kitesurfing Mar de Ajó.jpg, Kite surfing in Mar de Ajó, Argentina File:Hostería_Mar_de_Ajó.jpg, Mar de Ajó, Argentina File:Mar_de_Ajó_Playa.jpg, Mar de Ajó, Argentina File:Yrigoyen_esquina_Marano_hacia_el_sur,_Mar_de_Ajó.jpg, Mar de Ajó, Argentina File:Mar_de_Ajó,_Monumento_El_libertador_y_el_mar,_Ricardo_D_Emilio.jpg, Mar de Ajó, Argentina File:Mar de Ajó desde el muelle de pescadores.jpg, Mar de Ajó, Argentina

References

Populated coastal places in Argentina Populated places established in 1935 Populated places in Buenos Aires Province Seaside resorts in Argentina {{BuenosAiresAR-geo-stub