Native Argentine

Indigenous peoples in Argentina

Pampas peoples
Total population
955,032 2.38% of the Argentine Population
Regions with significant populations
Argentine Northwest
Languages
Spanish • Several Indigenous languages such as Qom, Wichi, Quechua, Mapuche, etc.

Argentina has 35 indigenous groups or Argentine Amerindians or Native Argentines, according to the Complementary Survey of the Indigenous Peoples of 2004, in the first attempt by the government in more than 100 years to recognize and classify the population according to ethnicity. In the survey, based on self-identification or self-ascription, around 600,000 Argentines declared to be Amerindian or first-generation descendants of Amerindians, that is, 1.49% of the population. The most populous of these were the Aonikenk, Kolla, Qom, Wichí, Diaguita, Mocoví, Huarpe peoples, Mapuche and Guarani In the 2010 census [INDEC], 955,032 Argentines declared to be Amerindian or first-generation descendants of Amerindians, that is, 2.38% of the population. Many Argentines also claim at least one indigenous ancestor: in a recent genetic study conducted by the University of Buenos Aires, more than 56% of the 320 Argentines sampled were shown to have at least one indigenous ancestor in one parental lineage and about 11% had indigenous ancestors in both parental lineages.

Jujuy Province, in the Argentine Northwest, is home to the highest percentage of households (15%) with at least one indigenous person or a direct descendant of an indigenous people; Chubut and Neuquén Provinces, in Patagonia, have upwards of 12%.