Fort of Buenos Aires

The Fort of Buenos Aires was a fortress destined to defend Buenos Aires and to be the seat of the Spanish colonial authorities in the city. Its construction began in 1595 and after several refurbishments it was finished only at the beginning of the 18th century, being demolished in 1882. It received the name of Real Fortaleza de Don Juan Baltasar de Austria (Royal Fortress of Don Juan Baltasar of Austria), and in the 17th century it was called Castillo de San Miguel Arcángel del Buen Ayre.

It was located on the banks of the Río de la Plata, which at that time was less than a hundred meters from the Plaza de Mayo. It occupied the same site that today occupies the Casa Rosada, seat of the executive power of the Argentine Republic. It had a stone wall, with a moat surrounding it, a drawbridge over the square, with bastions in its corners with cannons and interior buildings.

Acarette du Biscay, a French traveler, described it thus in 1658:

Text adapted from “Fuerte de Buenos Aires” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fort of Buenos Aires ranks #3,393 of 5,479 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #3 of the 5 mapped in Argentina. See how Argentina compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗