Tandil

Tandil lies among low rocky hills rising above the grasslands of the eastern pampas. The hills and nearby streams formed part of a landscape inhabited by Indigenous peoples before the expansion of Buenos Aires. In 1823 Governor Martín Rodríguez founded Fort Independencia at Tandil during a military campaign into the plains. A settlement grew beside the fort, an outpost of the advancing frontier in a country still traversed and occupied by Indigenous communities.

The later city of Mar del Plata lies here.