Montevideo () is the
capital and
largest city of
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, 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 ...
. According to the 2011 census, the
city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population)
in an area of . Montevideo is situated on the southern coast of the country, on the northeastern bank of the
Río de la Plata
The Río de la Plata (, "river of silver"), also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean and f ...
.
The city was established in 1724 by a Spanish soldier,
Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst the
Spanish-
Portuguese dispute over the
platine region. It was also under brief
British rule in 1807, but eventually the city was retaken by Spanish
criollos who defeated the
British invasions of the River Plate. Montevideo is the seat of the administrative headquarters of
Mercosur
The Southern Common Market, commonly known by Spanish abbreviation Mercosur, and Portuguese Mercosul, is a South American trade bloc established by the Treaty of Asunción in 1991 and Protocol of Ouro Preto in 1994. Its full members are Arge ...
and
ALADI
The Latin American Integration Association / Asociación Latinoamericana de Integración / Associação Latino-Americana de Integração (LAIA / ALADI) is an international and regional scope organization. It was created on 12 August 1980 by the ...
,
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...
's leading trade blocs, a position that entailed comparisons to the role of