It is a body under the Secretariat of the Interior, which aims to collect, order and keep the documentation that the law entrusts to it, to spread knowledge of the sources of Argentine history.

[1] Its collections occupy around 14 km (9 mi) of shelf stacks, and the AGN is a member of the Memory of the World Programme, a UNESCO initiative.

Operated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the AGN is organized into five departments: Housed within the former Congress building in 1906, the AGN was relocated to its present address at 246 Leandro Alem Avenue (a former National Mortgage Bank office designed by Arturo Prins, and completed in 1920), upon the inaugural of the new Mortgage Bank building in 1950.

[1] The headquarters cannot house the entirety of its vast collections, which include over 17 kilometres (11 mi) of shelves of documentation;[2] the Intermediate Archive, for instance, was opened in another, nearby building.

[3] Construction was approved in 2012 for a new main building for the AGN, designed by Fabio Estremera, Luciana Deschamps and Javier Gavernet, and to be located on the site of the former Caseros Prison in the Parque Patricios district.