Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, lies on the southeastern shore of South America between Argentina and Brazil, opening on the Río de la Plata and the Atlantic, a small Southern Cone country of three and a half million, two million of them in Montevideo. Hunter-gatherers ranged here thirteen thousand years ago; the Charrúa, Guaraní and Chaná met Europe unorganised and faded. Solís sighted the coast in 1516, Portugal raised Colônia do Sacramento in 1680, Spain answered with Montevideo fortress, and the coveted shore changed hands for a century. Independence came between 1811 and 1828 out of a four-cornered fight of Lisbon, Madrid, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, and the constitution of 1830 sealed the new republic. The nineteenth century belonged to the Colorado and National parties and their civil wars, the later century to Spanish, Italian and French immigrants who made modern Uruguay, and the early twentieth to pioneering pensions, schools and labour laws. A cattle, wool and port economy carried the riverside republic to 1945 democratic and literate.

Key facts

Uruguay won independence between 1811 and 1828 from a four-way struggle of Portugal, Spain, the United Provinces and Brazil

The constitution of 1830 formally founded the independent state with Montevideo as its stronghold

The Portuguese planted Colônia do Sacramento in 1680 facing Spanish Montevideo

European immigration, chiefly Spanish, Italian and French, peopled the country from the later nineteenth century

The Colorado and National parties fought the nineteenth century's civil wars and pioneered welfare reforms in the twentieth

Uruguay

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