Montevideo

Montevideo , city (1996 pop. 1,330,405), S Uruguay, capital and largest city of Uruguay, on the Río de La Plata. It is one of the major ports of South America and the governmental, financial, and commercial center of Uruguay. Much of the S Atlantic fishing fleet is based in Montevideo, and Uruguay's exports—frozen and canned meats and fish, wool, and grains—pass through the port. The city has industries producing textiles, dairy items, wines, and packaged meats; there are oil refineries and railway factories. Tourism is also important. Montevideo's origins lay in the colonial rivalry of the Spanish and Portuguese. The Portuguese constructed (1717) a fort on top of the hill that overlooks the harbor. Captured by the Spanish in 1724, the fort became the nucleus of the settlement founded in 1724 by the governor of Buenos Aires. Montevideo became the capital of Uruguay in 1828. It suffered during Uruguay's 19th-century civil wars and was besieged from 1843 to 1851. Today Montevideo is spacious, modern, and attractive, with broad, tree-lined boulevards, numerous beautiful parks, and fine buildings and residences. Notable among the parks is the Prado, which, with its lovely botanical gardens containing many thousands of plant species, is a popular promenade; among the impressive buildings are the cabildo [city hall], the legislative palace, the government palace, and the cathedral. Montevideo is the seat of Uruguay's two universities. There are fine beaches and luxurious hotels along the Plata estuary east to Punta del Este on the Atlantic Ocean.

Montevideo Capital of Uruguay, in the s part of the country, on the River Plate. Originally a Portuguese fort (1717), the Spanish captured Montevideo in 1726, and it became the capital of Uruguay in 1828. One of South America's major ports, it is the base of a large fishing fleet and handles most of the country's exports. Products include textiles, dairy goods, wine, and packaged meat. Pop. (2000) 1,380,962.

Montevideo, Uruguay, USA 1. Uruguay: although the Portuguese fortified a hill on the site of the present city in 1717, they were driven out by the Spanish in 1724. The Spanish city was founded two years later as San Felipe de Montevideo by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, Spanish governor of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to deter the Portuguese from advancing southwards from Brazil. The precise explanation for the name is not known, although there are plenty of theories all including monte, the Spanish for ‘mountain’ or ‘hill’. This presumably refers to the Cerro de Montevideo ‘Hill of Montevideo’ on the west side of the bay. No theory is particularly convincing. Video has been suggested as meaning ‘I see’ from the Latin, or vidi eo ‘It was I who saw’ ascribed to the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan^† who entered the estuary of the Río de la Plata at the end of 1519, or vi eu ‘I saw (a hill)’ uttered by a Spanish sailor as the ship approached the coast, or VI de O, an annotation on a Portuguese chart meaning ‘sixth mountain from the west’. A department and city‐port, it became the country's capital in 1828.2. USA (Minnesota): settled in 1867 and named by Cornelius J. Nelson in 1870 ‘From the Mountain I see’; also said to mean ‘I see the Mountain’.