ABSTRACT
One of the smallest countries in South America at 176,200 square kilometres (68,000 square miles), Uruguay is bounded by Brazil, Argentina and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a 1992 population of 3.2 million, mostly of European descent (many Italians and central Europeans arrived at the beginning of the twentieth century). The country's native population - the Charruas and other tribes - were killed or driven off in the early nineteenth century. In the two centuries after 1516, when the Spaniard Juan Diaz de SoHz landed in what is now Uruguay, few Spanish settlers arrived. During this time, the Portuguese, then ruling Brazil, invaded the region but were driven back by Spanish forces from the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata. About 1725, Montevideo, the present capital, was founded as a military outpost. Settlers were brought from the Canary Islands.
