The city of Mendoza is located on one of the most beautiful man-made oasis. Many important highways connect Mendoza to other cities of Argentina and to Chile.
There are channels all over the city, approximately 500 km, providing water to trees and to keep green spaces maintained. The city is an administrative, commercial and cultural centre. More than 700.000 people living in the city and surroundings come downtown daily. Most people in Mendoza stop work and activities for lunch some take small naps or breaks and start working again. This is a common custom in the Provinces of Argentina and seduces the tourists who also adapt to this way of life.
Mendoza offers many attractions, movies, theatres, museums, art galleries, discotheques and an important commercial area. There are also many cafés, pubs and excellent restaurants with different varieties of food, from the typical Argentine barbeque to the most sophisticated international foods.

Language

Telephone Area Code

Argentina: +54. Mendoza: 261.

Telephones: The public telephones work with cards you can buy at different stores or company offices, also with coins. There are also phone booths where you can pay cash (open 24 hs).
For national calls, you must dial a 0 first, before the area code. To call foreign countries, you must dial 00, the country code and city code. Prices are lower from 10 pm to 8 am.

Population

La ciudad cuenta con 110.000 habitantes, a los que se le agregan los más de 848.000 del área metropolitana.

Area

Mendoza has a total area of 57462 square miles. The province is divided in 18 departments.

Commercial Hours

Banks and currency Exchange offices: Mondays to Fridays, from 10 am to 3 pm.
Offices: generally from 09 am to 12 pm and from 2 pm to 7 pm.
Stores and businesses: in the larger city areas, from 9 am to 8 pm, in smaller city areas closing time is at noon. Saturdays open from 9 am to 1 pm.
Cafés and pizzerias: almost always open, closing from 2 to 6 am.

Restaurants: lunch is served from 12:30 pm and dinner from 830 pm. Many places offer fast foods at all hours.

Currency

Holidays

Religion

There is freedom of religion in Argentina, but the official religion is Catholic. There are also protestants, Jewish, Islamism, Greek orthodox, Russian orthodox and others.

Tourism

Subsecretary of Tourism: San Martín 1143. Telephone: +54 261 420 2800, Fax: + 54 261 420 2243.

Prevention, safety and assistence to tourists: turista@defensoria.org.ar

Tourist - Information: Perú 1049, Telephone: +54 261 4238710.

Maps: Could be purchasedin the Automóvil Club Argentino offices, Don Bosco 454 Mendoza, cartogra@aca.org.ar

Tips

It is accustomed to leave a 10% tip in restaurants and to top doormen, bellboys and ushers.

23 provinces, Federal Capital and Buenos Aires integrate the national territory. The government, according to the National Constitution, is republican and federal and the three powers are divided in three branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial.
The President and Vice President are in charge of the Executive branch for four years and they can be re-elected only once. The legislative branch is formed by two chambers: Senators; composed of three senators for each province and three for the City of Buenos Aires and Representatives; formed by the elected representatives, proportional to the number of people in each district. The President and Vice-President of the Nation, the Head of State of the city of Buenos Aires, the governors of each province and the members of the legislative branches are elected by obligatory, universal secret suffrage, by the citizens over 18 years of age. The “Supreme Court of Justice and the rest of the lower courts” are in charge of the judicial branch.
Each Province, according to principles, declarations and guarantees of the National Constitution and to the federal representative system, dictates its own constitution, applying its own government acts. The current Constitution dates from 1853. However, it was reformed in 1860, 1898, 1957 and 1994. The last reform, in August 1994, allows the re-election of the President, for another period. The current governor is: Celso Jaque.
There are two important historic dates: May 25th, 1810, when the First Patriotic Government Board. July 9^th, 1816, independence from the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata was proclaimed.
Symbols: the flag is composed of three horizontal stripes, two Light blue ones and a white one in the middle, with a rising sun. The national flower is the ceibo and the national stone is the “rodocrosita” or “Inca Rose”.