URUGUAY RIVER

Portuguese Rio Uruguai, Spanish Ro Uruguay, river in southern South America that rises in the coastal range of southern Brazil. Its chief headstream, the Pelotas River, rises just 40 miles (64 km) from the Atlantic coast at Alto do Bispo in Santa Catarina state, Brazil, and takes the name Uruguay after it is joined by the Canoas River near Piratuba. Flowing west through the coastal range of Brazil (separating Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul states), it then turns southwestward, forming the ArgentinaBrazil border. Below Monte Caseros, Arg., it turns southward, forming the border between Argentina and Uruguay until, above Buenos Aires, it combines with the Paran River to form the great estuary of the Ro de la Plata. Its 990-mile (1,593-kilometre) course is interrupted by rapids between Salto (Uruguay) and the influx of the Quara River (Spanish: Ro Guareim) near Monte Caseros; hence its importance as a waterway is less than that of the ParaguayParan river system. Ocean vessels can reach Paysand, Uruguay, about 130 miles (210 km) from the mouth; smaller ships can proceed to Salto, 60 miles (100 km) farther upstream. The economy The foundation of Uruguay's economy is said to have been laid in 1603, when a governor of Paraguay, Hernando Arias de Saavedra, shipped a number of cattle and horses downstream from Asuncin. The animals were landed on the Uruguayan riverbank, where they were left to run wild. Later in the century the herds were so abundant that they attracted gauchos, who crossed the Ro de la Plata from Buenos Aires and began a trade in hides. As more cattlemen arrived, boundaries had to be fixed, setting the stage for the development of the great estancias of the country. Uruguay's gross national product (GNP) per capita is among the highest in Latin America. The nation's relatively high standard of living continues to be closely related to the earnings from pastoral and agricultural exports; economic well-being is somewhat precarious because these primary products are subject to sudden fluctuations in world demand and prices. To reduce the nation's dependence on external trade, successive governments have encouraged the development of domestic industry by means of protective tariffs, import controls, exemptions of machinery from import duties, and preferential exchange rates. Because of a lack of local sources, Uruguay is obliged to import most of its fuel, industrial raw materials, vehicles, and industrial machinery. Although Uruguay is a heavily agricultural country, a large urban middle class dominates its society. The country is noted for its highly developed social services, but these have placed an excessive burden on national resources. Resources Uruguay has no domestic commercial sources of petroleum, natural gas, coal, or iron, a leading factor in the limitation of industrial growth in the country. The low, rolling countryside of Uruguay is not generally suited to hydroelectric development, and most of the electric installations were formerly dependent on imported coal or oil. This changed, however, after the hydroelectric plants built along the Negro and Uruguay rivers began producing at full power by the early 1980s. The land Relief, soils, and drainage Most of the Uruguayan landscape is characterized by gently rolling land and low hills. In the southern and eastern half of the country the land exhibits a subsoil of weathered ancient schist (crystalline rock) and granite through which less-weathered rocks protrude. In north central and central Uruguay the ancient schist is overlaid by horizontal layers of rock dating from the Permian period (from 286,000,000 to 245,000,000 years ago) that form a plateau. The northwestern portion is occupied by a plateau composed of horizontal beds of Triassic red sandstone (208,000,000 to 245,000,000 years old), in places faulted and capped by sheets of Triassic basalt. The plains are covered with deposits of sand and clay of the Pleistocene epoch (1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago) and with alluvial beds. In northeastern Uruguay the low, rolling hills are a southward extension of the Brazilian Highlands. Tidal lakes and sand dunes fringe the coastline. The northwestern section of the republic presents a greater variety of relief, with occasional ridges, broad valleys, and low plateaus. No hill in Uruguay rises to more than 1,700 feet (520 metres). Although it is a well-watered land, no large rivers flow entirely within Uruguay. The largest stream, the Negro River, is navigable only in its lower part. The Uruguay River, along the western border of the nation, is navigable for ships of 14-foot (4.3-metre) draft from its mouth to Paysand, and for smaller vessels above that point to the falls at Salto. The Santa Luca, Cebollat, and Queguay Grande rivers are the other principal streams. The people The Uruguayans of today are predominantly of European origin, mostly descendants of 19th- and 20th-century immigrants from Spain and Italy and, to a lesser degree, France and Britain. Earlier settlers had migrated from Argentina and Paraguay. Few descendants of Uruguay's original population remain. Of the small number of blacks in the country, most came southward from Brazil. Uruguay is one of the few Latin-American republics not overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. According to Uruguayan census data, about 60 percent of the people identify themselves as Roman Catholic, but, in terms of practicing communicants, there are indications of a still lower percentage. The establishment of Methodist churches in provincial cities attests to the Protestant missionary efforts of the 1920s. There are also sizable congregations of Anglicans and other Protestant groups. Jews, mostly in Montevideo, make up a very small minority group in Uruguay, but they are nevertheless one of the larger Jewish communities in South America. Mormon missionaries have become increasingly active. Without an Indian minority, Uruguayans universally speak Spanish, although in the borderland towns close to Brazil an admixture of Portuguese and Spanish words and phrases can be heard. In and around the border city of Rivera, the bilingualism has yielded a slang called Portunol, from the words Portuguese and espaol. Of the 19 departamentos into which the republic is administratively divided, the departamento of Montevideo, almost coterminous with the national capital, is the most populous, followed by the departamento of Canelones; none of the other departamentos is close to those two in population. Nevertheless, Uruguay is a highly urban country, with more than 80 percent of the people classified as urban. The population, which was estimated at more than 3,000,000 in the late 1980s, has grown much more slowly than that of most other Latin-American countries. Uruguay's birth rate and proportion of young people in the population are lower than those of most other South American countries. Marvin H. Alisky