Introducing Asunción

021 / pop1.2 million

It’s hard to get your head around Asunción. At heart she is beautiful, with a sprinkling of original colonial and beaux-arts buildings, international cuisine, shady plazas and friendly people. Her more-recent and modern demeanor boasts new, seemingly endless suburbs, ritzy shopping malls and smart nightclubs.

But her sophistication hides blemishes: the Río Paraguay backdrop and its shanty shacks, dengue fever–carrying mosquitoes, diesel-spewing buses, stark utilitarian architecture and oppressive heat and humidity.

Like a vain woman hiding her age but succumbing to middle-age spread, Asunción claims to have 1.2 million people, yet seems to hold many more – her sprawling suburbs have joined with neighboring towns. Despite her flaws, she’s well worth getting to know.