To Duval Family Home Page South America
To Chris Home Page Hispano-America
To Earth (Geography Home Page) Uruguay

Montevideo

Montevideo, the national capital of Uruguay, sits along the northern shore of the Río de la Plata1 estuary. Its metropolitan population is 1.936 million,2 with 1.305 million in the city proper.3 It has an old town and a new city, with the Plaza Independencia4--featuring a statue of Artigas--between them. The city, long a naval port, grew in importance in the later 19th century after Uruguay's civil war ended.

As of the spring of 2016, the tallest building is the Torre (tower) Antel (517 feet, 2002), whose bottom floor houses a telecommunications museum. The Palacio Salvo (328 feet to the tip, 275 feet by architectural height) was the tallest building in South America when it was finished in 1928. The Palacio Municipal (256 feet, 1941) includes works of art: a mural of tropical trees, and reproductions of Michelangelo's David (in black stone) and of the Winged Victory statue.5

UNESCO honors the city as a World Heritage 'Site,' along with Buenos Aires, for its contribution to tango dancing.

Tourists enjoy the ramblas (waterfront boulevards), the Andes Mueseum 1972 (Museo Andes), the Plaza Independencia and the Palacio Salvo.

The metropolitan area is served by the Carrasco/ General Cesário L. Berisso International Airport.6

YearPopulation
1900 CE268,0007
2012 CE1,936,0002

External references

Plaza Independencia and the Palacio Salvo, Montevideo, Uruguay

Historical maps

map showing Uruguay, 1900 CE

map showing Uruguay, 2000 CE

Footnotes

1. Translates from Spanish as River of Silver.
2. 2012 figure from world-gazetteer.com, accessed February 6, 2013.
3. 2011 figure from the side bar of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montevideo, accessed April 27, 2016.
4. Translates from Spanish as Independence.
5. Information about buildings comes from emporis.com, accessed June 7, 2016. The Antena Canal 10, a communications tower, is, at 600 feet, taller than the Torre Antel.
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_Uruguay, critiria for selecting from this list: scheduled service on commerical airlines; accessed April 27, 2016.
7. Tables of the Worlds Largest Cities, in Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987). Since at least 1900 it has been the largest city in Uruguay.