Archivo General de la Nación

Overview

The Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) is Argentina's largest archive, a body of the Ministry of Interior headquartered in the Parque Patricios neighborhood of Buenos Aires.

History

The AGN was founded on August 28, 1821, as the "Archivo de la Provincia de Buenos Aires" under Governor Martín Rodríguez and his minister Bernardino Rivadavia, and was federalized in 1884 under its current name. In 1957, it absorbed the collections of the Archivo Gráfico de la Nación, established in 1939. The AGN occupied a former Banco Hipotecario Nacional building at Avenida Leandro N. Alem 246 from 1950, later added a second site at Avenida Paseo Colón 1093, and in 2019 opened a new purpose-built headquarters in Parque Patricios (Rondeau 2277) — the first building in Argentina, and in the Southern Cone, designed and constructed specifically to house a national historical archive.

Collections, Holdings, and Publications

The AGN's holdings, spanning roughly five centuries, include documentation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, records of the National Directorate of Migration covering 1882 to 1937, and records related to state terrorism — all part of UNESCO's Memory of the World program. Its library holds close to 100,000 volumes, including the roughly 13,000-volume Ernesto Celesia Collection on the Río de la Plata and Spanish America, and the José Juan Biedma Collection on the War of the Triple Alliance and Patagonian history and geography.

Access and Usage

The AGN operates from three sites in Buenos Aires: Alem 246 (library collections), Paseo Colón 1093 (twentieth-century documentation), and Parque Patricios (colonial- and nineteenth-century documents and the photographic collection). Public research access is free for those 18 and older, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., by advance appointment.