Montevideo

Montevideo is the capital city of Uruguay, in South America.

It sits beside a very wide river mouth called the Río de la Plata. A long path runs along the shore.

Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay. It lies on the north shore of the Río de la Plata, a wide estuary that opens to the Atlantic Ocean.

Uruguay's 2023 census counted 1,302,954 people in the department of Montevideo, which holds the capital. That is more than one in every three people in the whole country, which had 3,499,451. Encyclopaedia Universalis notes that the capital has held about half of the country's people, counting its wider area, since the 1960s.

Montevideo is Uruguay's capital and, as Encyclopaedia Universalis puts it, a sign of how unevenly the country's people and activities are spread: since the 1960s its metropolitan area has held about half of the national population.

The census of 31 May 2023 counted 1,302,954 people in the department of Montevideo, against 1,319,108 in 2011 and 1,344,839 at the 1996 peak, out of 3,499,451 Uruguayans. Universalis describes it today as a service capital that centralizes the country's commerce and banking, as well as its universities and culture, and as the seat of the secretariat of Mercosur, the South American trade bloc.

Montevideo has a grand old theater for plays and music. A lamp high on its front tells people when there is a show.

A very long path called the Rambla runs beside the water.

The Teatro Solís opened in 1856 with an opera by Verdi. It seats about 1,500 people and is named after Solís, a navigator who explored the Río de la Plata. A lamp at the top of its front was lit to tell the city there was a show that night, and the theater keeps this tradition.

The Rambla is a waterfront promenade about 22 kilometers long. It runs from the old town past beaches and parks, and Uruguay has proposed it for UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Uruguay's Ministry of Education and Culture records that work on the Teatro Solís began in 1842 to a design by the Italian architect Carlo Zucchi, later adapted by Francisco Javier de Garmendia. Named for the navigator and explorer of the Río de la Plata, it opened on 25 August 1856 with Verdi's Ernani. The neoclassical theater seats about 1,500; its lamp on the pediment once announced performance nights. The city bought it in 1937, and it is home to the Comedia Nacional and the Montevideo Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Rambla, entered on Uruguay's tentative World Heritage list in 2010 and a National Historic Monument since 1986, is a system of public spaces joined by a road and walkway about 22 km long along the Río de la Plata, passing protected areas such as the old town, Pocitos, Carrasco and Punta Gorda.

Big ships use Montevideo's port. Fast boats cross the wide river to another big city, Buenos Aires.

Cars and people on foot follow the long road by the water.

Encyclopaedia Universalis describes the port as still very important: its warehouses gather crops from all over Uruguay to send abroad, and Encyclopaedia Universalis mentions a fast ferry linking the city with Buenos Aires in Argentina, across the river.

Along the shore, the Rambla carries both cars and people on foot for about 22 kilometers, linking the old town, beaches and parks.

Universalis calls the port's role still essential: its warehouses gather almost all of the country's farm produce for export and redistribution. Privatization in the 1990s and free-trade zones gave the port new life, including a fast ferry to Buenos Aires, and industries from meatpacking to a petrochemical complex grew up around the bay.

On land, the Rambla is described in Uruguay's tentative-list entry as a set of public spaces joined by a route for vehicles and pedestrians about 22 km long, of varying width, following the Río de la Plata and acting as the city's interface with the river.

On Sundays, people in Montevideo march through the streets playing big drums. This music is called candombe.

Each neighborhood has its own beat on the biggest drum.

Candombe is a drumming tradition of Montevideo's community of African descent. On Sundays and many holidays, drum calls march through the Sur, Palermo and Cordón districts in the south of the city. People gather around fires to tune their drums before setting off, and neighbors dance alongside or watch from balconies.

UNESCO added candombe to its list of the world's living heritage in 2009.

UNESCO inscribed 'Candombe and its socio-cultural space: a community practice' in 2009. The llamadas de tambores, or drum calls, fill the southern districts of Sur, Palermo and Cordón on Sundays and holidays. Drummers gather around communal fires to tune their drums; the parade is led by members of families recognized for drumming over many generations, with other drummers in rows behind them and dancers and spectators alongside or on balconies.

The beat of the largest and deepest drum, the piano, differs in each of the three neighborhoods, so the call-and-response of candombe both unites the districts and marks each one's identity. Meanwhile, the Teatro Solís is home to the Comedia Nacional, the Montevideo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Montevideo Symphonic Band.