ZARATE

city, northeastern Buenos Aires province, Argentina, on the Ro Paran de las Palmas, a channel of the lower Paran delta emptying into the Ro de la Plata northwest of Buenos Aires. Founded in 1825 as Rincn de Zrate, the settlement was given city status in 1909. From 1932 to 1946 it was known as General Uriburu. Although wheat, alfalfa, flax, and potatoes are cultivated and livestock are raised in the hinterland, Zrate is primarily a manufacturing and transportation centre, with meat-packing plants, paper mills, and dairies. A 20-mi (33-km)-long system of bridges, roadways, and railways was completed in the late 1970s extending north from Zrate across the Paran delta; for the first time, direct transportation links between the Argentine Mesopotamia and Buenos Aires regions were established. A free trade zone for Paraguayan commerce was under construction near Zrate in the early 1980s, but the port of Zrate itself is not navigable to oceangoing vessels. Pop. (1980) 65,504.