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Tandil

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Tandil can also be a spider genus, and a German detergent.

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Tandil is the main city of the homonym partido (department), located in the southwest of Buenos Aires Province, over Tandilia hill range.

Geography

Picture of the city, taken from La Movediza

It's located 180 meters over the sea level and its coordinates are 37°19′08″S 59°08′05″W / 37.31889°S 59.13472°W / -37.31889; -59.13472. Tandil borders on Rauch and Azul (at north), Ayacucho and Balcarce (at west), Lobería, Necochea and Benito Juárez (at south) and Azul and Benito Juárez (at west).

The city is about 330 km away from La Plata (province capital) and Bahía Blanca, 160 km away from Mar del Plata, and 360 from Buenos Aires. It's in a zone known as Humid Pampa.

Its population is 108.109 inhabitants, as of the 2001 census (INDEC), but now Tandil's government estimates that the number reaches 110.000 people. The total partido area is 4.935 km².

Climate

Tandil's Municipality

Tandil's climate is humid and mild, with an average temperature of 13.7ºC and 889 milimiters of precipitations. Mornings are often cold, even in summer. Fog is very usual in autumm and winter (when also frosts are common). Lots of days with minimum temperatures under -5ºC wouldn't be strange. It rains during all the year, but more frequently in summer. Snow and strong heats are not very common.

Place name

Plaza Independencia (Independence Square)

The name of the city comes from the Mapuche words tan ("falling"), and lil ("rock"). It is probably a reference to the Piedra Movediza ("Moving Stone"), a large boulder which stood seemingly miraculously balanced on the brink of a chasm. The Moving Stone toppled on February 29, 1912. Some people thought that tan in fact meant "moving". In order to demonstrate the slight movements of the boulder, it was common practice to place bottles or some other things on its base to see them break. As of May 2007, a replica was set up in the same place where the original stood.

History

Christ sculpture in Monte Calvario
Lago del Fuerte (Fortress Lake), with its artificial geyser
Tandil at night, taken from the top of Parque Independencia (Independence Park)

The city was founded by Martín Rodríguez on April 4, 1823, named Fuerte Independencia (Independence Fortress). Between that year and 1875, the nativs defended from the Europeans usurpation, who thought that, considered not humans (was written to the king: "they eat burning coals, kill and tear their children to pieces") aborigins wouldn't reject the invasion. In that way, Tandil received counterattacks from the native Pampas and Ranqueles again and again. With the annihilation and expulsion of the original inhabitants, called "Conquest of the Desert" (it was an Europeans desert), the European presence became stronger in Tandil, receiving lots of immigrants from different places of Europe. The main countries where immigrants came from where Italy and Spain, as in the rest of Argentina, but also came basques (most of them from France) and danishes, who still nowadays constitute a very active community. Because of the population increase, Tandil became a city by the end of XIXth century. Beginning XXth century, Tandil was a successful city that attracted tourist from Buenos Aires and other zones of Argentina (or even from outside the country) because of the sceneries, but specially due to a strange oscillatory stone: the Piedra Movediza. Being almost conical, it stood on the brink of a chasm. The Piedra Movediza fell down in 1912, probably due to humans. There have been projects to restore it, but other similar stones remain, as El Centinela, making the scenery very attractive. This made easier the creation of other touristical places as Sierra del Tigre or Monte Calvario.

Notable natives

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tandil.
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