Uruguay River
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Map of the Uruguay's course |
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Sunset in the Uruguay River, from Misiones, Argentina |
The
Uruguay River (in
Spanish,
Río Uruguay, ) is a
river in
South America. It flows from north to south and makes boundary with
Brazil,
Argentina and
Uruguay, separating some of the Argentine provinces of the
Mesopotamia from the other two countries. It passes between the states of
Santa Catarina and
Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil; forms the eastern border of the provinces of
Misiones,
Corrientes and
Entre Ríos in Argentina; and makes up the western borders of the departments of
Artigas,
Salto,
Paysandú,
Río Negro,
Soriano and
Colonia in Uruguay.
The river measures about 1,500 km in length and starts in the Serra do Mar (Brazil), at , where the Canoas River and the Pelotas River are joined, at about 2,050 m
above mean sea level. In this stage the river goes through uneven, broken terrain, forming
rapids and falls. Its course through Rio Grande do Sul is not navigable.
Together with the
Paraná River, the Uruguay forms the
Río de la Plata estuary. It is navigable from around
Salto Chico. Its main
tributary is the
Río Negro, which is born in Uruguay and goes 500 km until its
confluence with the Uruguay, which is located 100 km north from the Uruguay's confluence with the Río de la Plata, in Punta Gorda (Colonia Department, Uruguay).
The river is crossed by three international bridges between Argentina and Uruguay. From north to south, these are: the
Salto Grande Bridge, the
General Artigas Bridge and the
Libertador General San Martín Bridge.
The basin of the Uruguay River has an area of 370,000
km². Its main economic use is the generation of
hydroelectricity (see
Salto Grande Dam).
The name of the river comes from the Spanish settlers' interpretation of the word the locals used to designate it. The original name,
Urugua'ý, in
Guaraní, means "river of the painted birds".
Since April 2005, Argentina and Uruguay are experiencing a conflict over the Uruguay River. Two foreign companies are building
cellulose processing plants at
Fray Bentos, Uruguay, opposite
Gualeguaychú, Argentina, and residents of the latter as well as many others have protested, claiming that the plants will pollute the river shared by the two countries. At the turn of the year the conflict escalated into a diplomatic crisis. Since December 2005 the international bridges linking the Argentine province of
Entre Ríos with Uruguay have been intermitently blockaded by Argentine protestors, causing major disruptions in commercial traffic and tourism.
*
List of rivers of the Americas*
Salto Grande Hydroelectric System (in Spanish)
*
Trivia about Uruguay (in Spanish)
*
From Uruguay Blog about everything uruguayan (in english)
