Why is it said that Argentina is a bicontinental country?

( Spanish) — Argentina is the fourth largest country in Americabehind Canada, the United States and Brazil, and the second in size from Latin America.

Its capital, Buenos Aires, was the center of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata during the last stage of Spanish rule in America, and from 1810 it promoted the independence of the future Argentina and other countries on the continent.

Argentina is, in short, an American country.

So why does the Argentine State maintain that the country is bicontinental? What other continent are you referring to?

The answer is in Antarctica.

Argentina claims sovereignty over an extensive territory of 1,461,597 km2 (including mainland and territorial waters) of the Antarctic continent. It is delimited by the 60° parallel and the South Pole, and the meridians 25° and 74° west longitude, OK with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country.

But there are also six other countries (Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom) that claim sovereignty in Antarctica, and two of them —Chili and United Kingdom— have claims that overlap with each other and with Argentina’s.

Since 1904, Argentina maintains scientific bases on this continent, and in 1959 he was one of the 12 signatories of the Antarctic Treaty, an instrument that safeguards these claims and temporarily suspends disputes.

It also establishes free scientific research, the exclusively peaceful use of the territory and the prohibition to carry out activities of economic or military exploitation.

Thus, through the Antarctic Treaty, the international community recognizes the existence of sovereignty claims prior to 1959 but does not in fact recognize that sovereignty or subsequent claims.

In 2010, however, Argentina passed a law which establishes, for all official and educational use, the obligatory nature of the bicontinental map, that is, the one that shows its American continental territory and also the one claimed in Antarctica.

Administratively, the territory is part of the province of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur, created in 1990 and whose capital is Ushuaia.

The province has 190,641 inhabitants, of whom 130 lived in Antarctica, according to 2022 Census data.