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Portal:Uruguay

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The Uruguay Portal

Sun of May of Uruguay
Sun of May of Uruguay
Location of Uruguay

Uruguay (/ˈjʊərəɡw/ 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...)

The Uruguay national football team (Spanish: Selección de fútbol de Uruguay), nicknamed La Celeste (The Sky Blue), represents Uruguay in international men's football, and is administered by the Uruguayan Football Association, the governing body for football in Uruguay.

Uruguay has won four world competitions organised by FIFA: two Olympic titles and two FIFA World Cups. Their first two senior world titles came at the Olympic tournaments of Paris 1924 and Amsterdam 1928, two events that were directly organized by FIFA as open tournaments that included professionals. In 1924, La Celeste beat Switzerland 3–0 in the final. Then, in 1928, Uruguay repeated the Olympic championship by beating Argentina 2–1. They then secured a third consecutive title at the inaugural FIFA World Cup in Montevideo, where they beat Argentina 4–2 in the decisive match. Uruguay's fourth title came in 1950 after beating hosts Brazil in the final match 2–1, a match that still holds the record for the highest official attendance for a football match ever (173,850 people at the gate). (Full article...)

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Arroyo Pando, in the neighborhood of El Pinar, Canelones, Uruguay.
Arroyo Pando, in the neighborhood of El Pinar, Canelones, Uruguay.
Credit: Laura Batalla (Laurabat55)

Arroyo Pando, in the neighborhood of El Pinar, Canelones, Uruguay.

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Fuerte de San Miguel

  • ... that one outpost of Uruguay's Fuerte San Miguel (pictured) has a wall and small window that appears like a cave or an animal burrow?

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Eduardo Galeano in 2012

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 [es], 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...)

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Barnstar of National Merit of Uruguay
    "It may be awarded to an editor who contributes significantly by expanding or improving Wikipedia's coverage of any past or present continent or regional grouping, country, or subnational place such as a province or city."

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