page_title: Pilar, Buenos Aires
section_title: History and overview
hierarchical_section_title: Pilar, Buenos Aires / History and overview
caption_attribution_description: Español: Palacio Municipal del Pilar
context_page_description: Pilar is a city in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina with a population of 299,077 as per the 2010 census [INDEC]. It is part of the Greater Buenos Aires urban conurbation and is the seat of the administrative division of Pilar Partido. Since the early 1990s, Pilar has gained an increasingly upscale profile due to the development of numerous gated communities, country clubs and polo fields.
context_section_description: The rural outpost that later became Pilar was first assigned a local authority in 1774 with the appointment of Ventura López Camelo as its first alcalde, or mayor. Pilar is the site where the Treaty of Pilar was signed on February 23, 1820, establishing the basis for Argentine federalism, as a result of which the city of Pilar is acknowledged as the "Cradle of National Federalism." This Treaty marked the end of the war between the League of Free Peoples formed by the provinces of Entre Ríos and Santa Fe against Buenos Aires.
  The Parish of Our Lady of the Pillar was consecrated in 1856, and the partido (county) of Pilar was established in 1864, its first municipal mayor being Tomás Márquez.
  A Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway line, its first, reached the town in 1886, and by 1895 nearly 10,000 inhabitants lived in Pilar. The opening of National Route 8 in 1934 eased the 58 kilometres (36 mi) commute to Buenos Aires, and Pilar subsequently became a growing commuter town.
  Pilar grew further after the construction in the late 1960s of a freeway along the stretch of National Route 8 to Buenos Aires, and with the establishment in 1970 of the local industrial district, the Parque Industrial Pilar, which grew to be among the largest in South America and home to 200 national and international companies.
  The establishment of the first polo fields beginning in the late 19th century and of a number of country clubs from 1948 onward, as well as the development of numerous gated communities beginning in the 1990s, gave Pilar an increasingly upscale profile in subsequent years.
  Numerous visitor and tourist attractions are located in the city. These include the Parish of Our Lady of the Pillar (1856); the October 12 Plaza facing it (both National Historic Monuments); the Spanish Colonial Revivalist City Hall (1896); the Alcalde Lorenzo López Historical Museum; the (reputedly haunted) Pando-Carabassa Chalet (1900), the Argentine Polo Association therein, and the adjoining polo fields; several country clubs including the Highland Park Country Club (1948), Golfer's Country Club (1973), Pilar Golf Club (1992), and the Estancias Golf Club (2008); and the Pilar Nature Reserve (2003). Pilar is also the site of the private Austral University, founded in 1991.
caption: City Hall
exif: {}