Portal:Uruguay
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The Uruguay PortalUruguay (/ˈjʊərəɡwaɪ/ YOOR-ə-gwy, Spanish: [uɾuˈɣwaj] ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay (Spanish: República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast. It is part of the Southern Cone region of South America. Uruguay covers an area of approximately 176,215 square kilometres (68,037 sq mi). It has a population of around 3.4 million, of whom nearly 2 million live in the metropolitan area of its capital and largest city, Montevideo. The area that became Uruguay was first inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers 13,000 years ago. The predominant tribe at the moment of the arrival of Europeans was the Charrúa people. At the same time, there were also other tribes, such as the Guaraní and the Chaná, when the Portuguese first established Colonia do Sacramento in 1680; Uruguay was colonized by Europeans later than its neighboring countries. The Spanish founded Montevideo as a military stronghold in the early 18th century due to competing claims over the region, while Uruguay won its independence between 1811 and 1828, following a four-way struggle between Portugal and Spain, and later Argentina and Brazil. It remained subject to foreign influence and intervention throughout the first half of the 19th century. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, numerous pioneering economic, labor, and social reforms were implemented, which led to the creation of a highly developed welfare state, which is why the country began to be known as "Switzerland of the Americas". However, a series of economic crises and the fight against far-left urban guerrilla warfare in the late 1960s and early 1970s culminated in the 1973 coup d'état, which established a civic-military dictatorship until 1985. Uruguay is today a democratic constitutional republic, with a president who serves as both head of state and head of government. Uruguay is described as a "full democracy" and is highly ranked in international measurements of government transparency, economic freedom, social progress, income equality, per capita income, innovation, and infrastructure. The country has fully legalized cannabis (the first country in the world to do so), as well as same-sex marriage and abortion. It is a founding member of the United Nations, OAS, and Mercosur. (Full article...) Selected article -Uruguay is a country in the southeastern region of South America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean, between Argentina and Brazil. It is located in the Southern Hemisphere on the Atlantic seaboard of South America between 53 and 58 west longitude and 30 and 35 south latitude. It is bordered to the west by Argentina, on the north and northeast by Brazil, and on the southeast by the Atlantic Ocean, which makes up Uruguay's coast. To the south, it fronts the Río de la Plata, a broad estuary that opens out into the South Atlantic. Montevideo, the capital and major port, sits on the banks of the Río de la Plata and is on approximately the same latitude as Cape Town and Sydney. Uruguay is the smallest Spanish-speaking nation in South America with a land area of 175,015 km2 (67,574 sq mi) and a water area of 1,200 km2 (463 sq mi). Additionally, Uruguay is the world's only sovereign nation that does not extend north of the 30 degrees south latitude (if Nugent Island is considered New Zealand's northernmost point); accordingly, all other nations include at least some land further north than all points in Uruguay; in this sense, Uruguay could be considered the world's southernmost country. It has an Exclusive Economic Zone of 142,166 km2 (54,891 sq mi). It is the only country in South America situated completely south of the Tropic of Capricorn, as well as one of only four in the world. (Full article...) Selected picture -Track workers install rail on a line in Tacuarembó, Uruguay. The small cranes help the workers make small adjustments in the rail's position for the track's gauge.
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People -Eduardo Hughes Galeano (Spanish pronunciation: [eˈðwaɾðo ɣaleˈano]; 3 September 1940 – 13 April 2015) was a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist considered, among other things, "a literary giant of the Latin American left" and "global soccer's pre-eminent man of letters". Galeano's best-known works are Las venas abiertas de América Latina (Open Veins of Latin America, 1971) and Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire Trilogy , 1982–6). "I'm a writer," the author once said of himself, "obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia." (Full article...) General imagesThe following are images from various Uruguay-related articles on Wikipedia.
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