The history of immigration to Argentina can be divided into several major stages:Spanish colonization between the 16th and 18th century, mostly male, largely assimilated with the natives through a process called miscegenation. Although, not all of the current territory was effectively colonized by the Spaniards. The Chaco region, Eastern Patagonia, the current province of La Pampa, the south zone of Córdoba, and the major part of the current provinces of Buenos Aires, San Luis, and Mendoza were maintained under indigenous dominance—Guaycurúes and Wichís from the Chaco region; Huarpes in the Cuyana and north Neuquino; Ranqueles in the east of Cuyo and north from the Pampean region; Tehuelches and Mapuches in the Pampean and Patagonian regions, and Selknam and Yámanas in de Tierra del Fuego archipelago—which were taken over by the Mapuches; first to the east of Cordillera de los Andes, mixing interracially with the Pehuenches in the middle of the 18th century and continuing until 1830 with the indigenous Pampas and north from Patagonia, which were conquered by the Argentine State after its independence.
The African population, forcibly introduced from sub-Saharan Africa, taken to work as slaves in the colony between the 17th and 19th centuries in great numbers.
Immigration mostly European and to a lesser extent from Western Asia, including considerable Arab and Jewish currents, produced between the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, promoted by the Constitution of 1852 that prohibited establishing limitations to enter the country to those "strangers that bring through the purpose of working the land, bettering the industries, and introducing and teaching the sciences and the arts" and order the State to promote "European" immigration, even though after predomination of Mediterranean immigrants, from Eastern Europe and the western Asia. Added to this is the Alberdian precept of "to govern is to populate." These politics were destined to generate a rural social fabric and to finalize the occupation of the Pampean, Patagonian, and Chaco territories, that until the 1880s, were inhabited by diverse indigenous cultures.
European immigration in the 19th century and early 20th century, focused on colonization and sponsored by the government.
The immigration from nearby countries from the 19th to 21st century. These immigration streams date back to the first agro-pottery civilizations that appeared in Argentine territory.
From the 1980s and 1990s, the migration currents especially come from Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Asia and Eastern Europe.
During the 21st century, a part of Argentine migrants and their descendants returned from Europe and the United States. In addition, immigrants from Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru; now there are also migratory streams from China, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, Senegal, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, and Haiti.
Mostly urban immigration during the era of rapid growth in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, before and after World War I and also after the Spanish Civil War.
