Why it looks like this

Like most Spanish colonial cities, Córdoba began as a drawing: in 1573 its founders staked out a compact grid of about seventy square blocks beside the Suquía River, with the Plaza Mayor (now Plaza San Martín) at the centre. The Jesuits soon built their university block — the 'Manzana Jesuítica', UNESCO-listed in 2000 — a block that made this one of the oldest university cities in the Americas.

The modern city radiates from that original square kilometre: diagonal avenues, a ring road, and barrios spreading over the low hills, but the map's heart is still the 16th-century checkerboard.