Uruguay’s name may mean bird-river in Guaraní country
The Oriental Republic of Uruguay sits between Argentina and Brazil on the Río de la Plata and Atlantic edge of southeastern South America. Hunter-gatherers arrived about 13,000 years ago; Juan Díaz de Solís reached the coast in 1516, yet colonisation lagged neighbours while Charrúa peoples predominated at contact.
In colonial times the territory was called the Banda Oriental, the eastern bank of the Uruguay River, and briefly the Provincia Oriental; since independence it has been the República Oriental del Uruguay, rendered in English as the Oriental or Eastern Republic. The river’s Guaraní name has several readings, among them bird river, from urú for wild fowl, or a reference to a river snail called uruguá. The poet Juan Zorrilla de San Martín popularised the river of painted birds, a doubtful translation that still carries cultural weight.
People have lived here for around 13,000 years. In the east stand earthen mounds called Cerritos de Indios, some roughly 5,000 years old, built by people who left no writing but did leave signs of farming and of extinct native woolly dogs. When Europeans arrived in the sixteenth century, there were an estimated 9,000 Charrúa and 6,000 Chaná, along with Guaraní settlements on islands. Although a Spanish expedition touched this shore as early as 1516, Europeans settled it later than the surrounding territories.
Independence brought foreign interference and internal turmoil. Two parties, the Colorados and the Nationals, together called the Traditional Parties, fought several civil wars in the nineteenth century. From the second half of that century waves of migrants, chiefly from Spain, Italy and France, reshaped the population and culture.
Reforms to the economy, labour and social policy early in the twentieth century built the base for a developed welfare state, and a long stretch of political stability followed. Today Uruguay is a high-income, socially liberal country that scores near the top of international rankings for democracy, transparency, equality and infrastructure.
Source: Uruguay
