Carpenter’s Geographical Reader: South America (1899) informed readers that “Buenos Aires is by far the largest Spanish-speaking city of the world; it is more than three times the size of Madrid, the largest city of Spain. Still, most of its people are foreigners. Not more than one fifth of them were born in the country. There are more Italians than native Argentines in Buenos Aires, and at least one hundred thousand of its citizens have come here from Spain.”