The city's broad avenues are lined with orange and other flowering trees and interrupted with many plazas and gardens. Most of the older houses are built of plastered brick painted in soft colors and decorated with iron balconies and with iron grillwork. Newer houses are built in a variety of styles that are suitable for the subtropical climate.

Near the riverbank is the Congressional Palace. Across from it are the cathedral and the Archbishop's Palace. The Government Palace, which houses the administrative offices, is also near the river. On Plaza Independencia, the busiest section of the city, is the Pantheon of Heroes, modeled after Les Invalides in Paris. Paraguay's national heroes are buried here. The Hotel Guaraní was designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. Caballero Park, the estate of a former general, houses the National Historical Museum. Carlos Antonio López Park, the estate of Paraguay's first president, is 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the center of the city. Among the city's institutions of higher learning are the Universidad Nacional de Asunción, which was founded in 1890, and the Universidad Católica “Nuestra Señora de la Asunción,” which was founded in 1960.

The Presidente General Stroessner Airport is 8 miles (13 kilometers) from the city. Asunción is also the terminus of the Ferrocarril (railway) Presidente Carlos Antonio López, which connects with the Argentine rail systems via a train ferry across the Paraná River at Encarnación, a major port city. Another ferry connection across the Paraguay River provides a road link with Buenos Aires.

Asunción is a busy river port with modern docks and cargo-handling equipment. It is the principal distributing and export center of the most densely populated region of Paraguay. Cotton, sugarcane, corn (maize), tobacco, fruit, and cattle products are processed here. Industrial plants produce textiles, vegetable oils, footwear, flour, small river craft, and tobacco products. There is also a large local transportation system that carries manufactured products to communities throughout the country and brings raw materials into the capital for processing.

The city of Asunción was founded on August 15, the date on which the Feast of the Assumption (Asunción in Spanish) of the Virgin Mary is celebrated, in 1537. Until the 17th century, when Buenos Aires assumed the role, it was the most important Spanish colonial city in the eastern part of South America. Paraguay declared its independence from Spain in 1811, and Asunción became the capital of the new republic. (See also Paraguay.) Population (1992 census), 500,938.