Uruguay

Uruguay

Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...

is a country in Southern South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

, between Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 and Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

. It is located in the Southern Hemisphere on the Atlantic seaboard of South America between 53 and 58 west longitude and 30 and 35 south latitude. It is bounded on the west by Argentina, on the north and northeast by Brazil, and on the southeast by the Atlantic Ocean.

To the south, it fronts the Río de la Plata, a broad estuary that opens out into the South Atlantic. Montevideo, the capital and major port, sits on the banks of the Río de la Plata

Río de la Plata

The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...

 and is on approximately the same latitude as Cape Town and Sydney. Uruguay is the smallest Spanish-speaking nation in South America with a land area of 173,620 km² and a water area of 2,600 km².

Topography and hydrography

Most of Uruguay is a rolling plain that represents a transition from the almost featureless Argentine pampas to the hilly uplands of southern Brazil. The country itself has flat plains on its eastern, southern, and western edges. The narrow Atlantic coastal plain is sandy and marshy, occasionally broken by shallow lagoons. The littorals of the Río de la Plata and the Río Uruguay are somewhat broader and merge more gradually into the hilly interior.

The remaining two-quarters of the country is a rolling plateau marked by ranges of low hills that become more prominent in the north as they merge into the highlands of southern Brazil. Even these hilly areas are remarkably featureless, however, and elevations seldom exceed 200 meters.

Uruguay is a water-rich land. Prominent bodies of water mark its limits on the east, south, and west, and even most of the boundary with Brazil follows small rivers. Lakes and lagoons are numerous, and a high water table makes digging wells easy.

3 systems of rivers drain the land: rivers flow westward to the Río Uruguay, eastward to the Atlantic or tidal lagoons bordering the ocean, and south to the Río de la Plata. The Río Uruguay, which forms the border with Argentina, is flanked by low banks, and disastrous floods sometimes inundate large areas. The longest and most important of the rivers draining westward is the Río Negro

Río Negro (Uruguay)

The Río Negro is the most important river in Uruguay. It originates in the southern highlands of Brazil, just east of Bagé, and flows west across the entire width of Uruguay to the Uruguay River. The course of the Río Negro across Uruguay effectively divides the south of the country from the north...

, which crosses the entire country from northeast to west before emptying into the Río Uruguay. A dam on the Río Negro at Paso de los Toros has created a reservoir—the Embalse del Río Negro—that is the largest artificial lake in South America. The Río Negro's principal tributary and the country's second most important river is the Yí River

Yí River

-Geography:The Yí River originates in the Cuchilla Grande highlands. It flows generally west through central Uruguay to the Río Negro.Various other rivers, including the Porongos River and Chamangá River, are tributaries of the Yí River.-Departmental boundaries:...

 (Río Yí).
The rivers flowing east to the Atlantic are generally shallower and have more variable flow than the other rivers. Many empty into lagoons in the coastal plain. The largest coastal lagoon, Laguna Merín, forms part of the border with Brazil. Six smaller lagoons, some freshwater and some brackish, line the coast farther south.

Climate

Located entirely within the temperate zone, Uruguay has a humid subtropical climate

Humid subtropical climate

A humid subtropical climate is a climate zone characterized by hot, humid summers and mild to cool winters...

 (Cfa according to the Köppen climate classification

Köppen climate classification

The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by Crimea German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen himself, notably in 1918 and 1936...

) that is fairly uniform nationwide. Seasonal variations are pronounced, but extremes in temperature are rare. As would be expected by its abundance of water, high humidity and fog are common. The absence of mountains, which act as weather barriers, makes all locations vulnerable to high winds and rapid changes in weather as fronts or storms sweep across the country. Weather is sometimes humid.

Seasons are fairly well defined, and in most of Uruguay spring is usually damp, cool, and windy; summers are warm; autumns are mild; and winters are chilly and uncomfortably damp. Northwestern Uruguay, however, is farther from large bodies of water and therefore has warmer summers and milder and drier winters than the rest of the country. Average highs and lows in summer (January) in Montevideo

Montevideo

Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...

 are 28 and 17 °C (82.4 and 62.6 °F), respectively, with an absolute maximum of 43 °C (109.4 °F); comparable numbers for Artigas in the northwest are 33 and 18 °C (91.4 and 64.4 °F), with the highest temperature ever recorded (42 °C (107.6 °F)). Winter (July) average highs and lows in Montevideo are 14 and 6 °C (57.2 and 42.8 °F), respectively, although the high humidity makes the temperatures feel colder; the lowest temperature registered in Montevideo is -4 °C. Averages in July of a high of 18 °C (64.4 °F) and a low of 7 °C (44.6 °F) in Artigas confirm the milder winters in northwestern Uruguay, but even here temperatures have dropped to a subfreezing -4 °C.

Rainfall is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year, and annual amounts increase from southeast to northwest. Montevideo averages annually, and Artigas receives 1235 millimetres (48.6 in) in an average year. As in most temperate climates, rainfall results from the passage of cold fronts in winter, falling in overcast drizzly spells, and summer thunderstorms are frequent.

High winds are a disagreeable characteristic of the weather, particularly during the winter and spring, and wind shifts are sudden and pronounced. A winter warm spell can be abruptly broken by a strong pampero, a chilly and occasionally violent wind blowing north from the Argentine pampas. Summer winds off the ocean, however, have the salutary effect of tempering warm daytime temperatures.

Land use and settlement patterns

Uruguay may be divided into four regions, based on social, economic, and geographical factors. The regions include the interior, the littoral, Greater Montevideo, and the coast.

The interior

This largest region includes the departments of Artigas

Artigas Department

The Department of Artigas , with an area of and 78,019 inhabitants, it is the northernmost department of Uruguay. Its capital is Artigas.It is named after José Artigas , leader of the orientales during the wars of Independence.-Geography and climate:Neighbouring departments are Salto to the...

, Cerro Largo

Cerro Largo Department

Cerro Largo Department is a department of Uruguay. Its capital is Melo.-History:During the 19th and early 20th centuries, when intermittent periods of civil war occurred in Uruguay, the department was a stronghold of the Blanco party...

, Durazno

Durazno Department

Durazno is a department of Uruguay. Its capital is Durazno. Its name means "peach" in Spanish, referring to the department's peaches and its status as an agricultural breadbasket.-Economy and Geography:...

, Flores

Flores Department

-History and cultural heritage:The department, created by President Máximo Santos, is named after the former Colorado Party leader, Venancio Flores, who was born in Trinidad in the nineteenth century.The department has many sites of prehistoric rock art...

, Florida

Florida Department

Florida is a department of Uruguay. Its capital of is Florida.-Population and Demographics:As of the census of 2004, there were 68,181 people and 21,938 households in the department. The average household size was 3.1...

, Lavalleja

Lavalleja Department

The Department of Lavalleja is a department of Uruguay. The capital is Minas. It is located in the southeast of the country, bordered to the north by the department of Treinta y Tres to the east with Rocha, to the south with Canelones and Maldonado, and to the west to Florida.The department is...

, Rivera

Rivera Department

Rivera is a department of Uruguay. Its capital is Rivera.- History :The Battle of Masoller, a noteworthy event in Uruguayan history, was fought on September 1, 1904; Masoller is situated on the boundary between the departments of Artigas and Salto, close to the Brazilian border.-Population and...

, Salto

Salto Department

Salto Department is a department of Uruguay. Its capital is Salto.-Population and Demographics:As of the census of 2004, there were 123,120 people and 34,441 households in the department. The average household size was 3.5...

, Tacuarembó

Tacuarembó Department

Tacuarembó is the largest department of Uruguay. Its capital is Tacuarembó.-Population and Demographics:As of the census of 2004, there were 90,489 people and 28,054 households in the department. The average household size was 3.2...

, and Treinta y Tres

Treinta y Tres Department

Treinta y Tres is a department of Uruguay. Its capital is Treinta y Tres.-History of name:'Treinta y Tres' is Spanish for 'Thirty-Three'. The department is named after 33 19th century patriots honoured by Uruguayans.-Population and Demographics:...

 and the eastern halves of Paysandú

Paysandú Department

Paysandú Department is a department of Uruguay. Its capital is Paysandú. Its name origin is debated but is likely to be of charrua origin.The fertile soils of Paysandú have encouraged much agricultural development. Livestock raising is one of the principal agricultural activities, with cattle...

, Río Negro

Río Negro Department

The Río Negro Department is an administrative division of Uruguay located in the west of the country. It has 53,989 inhabitants and an area of 9,282 km² . Its capital is Fray Bentos.-Geography and climate:...

, and Soriano

Soriano Department

Soriano is a department of Uruguay. Its capital is Mercedes.-Population and Demographics:As of the census of 2004, there were 84,563 people and 26,105 households in the department. The average household size was 3.2...

. The topsoil is thin and unsuited to intensive agriculture, but it nourishes abundant natural pasture.

Only 2 to 3 % of Uruguay's land is forested. An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 km² (17 to 23 % of the total land) are arable, but only one-third of this (about 7 % of the total productive land) was cultivated in 1990. Almost all of the interior consisted of cattle and sheep ranches; pasture accounted for 89 % of the country's productive land.

Sheep rearing was typically undertaken on medium-sized farms concentrated in the west and south. It began to boom as an export industry in the last quarter of the 19th century, particularly following the invention of barbed wire, which allowed the easy enclosure of properties. Uruguayan wool is of moderate quality, not quite up to Australian standards.

Cattle ranches, or estancias, for beef and hides were typically quite large (over 10 km²) and were concentrated in the north and east. (Dairying was concentrated in the department of Colonia.) Because ranching required little labor, merely a few gauchos, the interior lacked a peasantry and large towns. Despite being sparsely populated, however, the interior was relatively urbanized in that the capital of each department usually contained about half the inhabitants. Social and economic development indicators were lowest for the departments along the Brazilian border to the northeast. Government attempts to encourage agricultural colonization by means of land reform in the interior had largely failed in economic terms, as had the promotion of wheat production. One exception, rice, most of which was produced in the east, had become a major nontraditional export in recent years.

The Littoral

Stretching west along the Río de la Plata from Montevideo, are the agricultural and dairying departments of San José and Colonia. To the north along the Río Uruguay lie the departments of Soriano, Río Negro, Paysandú and Salto. Their western halves form part of the litoral, a region that is somewhat more developed than the interior. Here soils are alluvial and more fertile, favoring crop production and farms of more modest size than in the interior. Citrus cultivation for export has increased in the departments along the Río Uruguay. The department of Colonia, some of which was settled by the Swiss, was famous for the production of milk, butter, cheese, and dulce de leche (a dessert made from concentrated milk and sugar). Most wheat (in which Uruguay was self-sufficient) also was produced in this region.

Construction with Argentina of the Salto Grande Dam

Salto Grande Dam

The Salto Grande Dam is a large hydroelectric dam on the Uruguay River, located between Concordia, Argentina, and Salto, Uruguay; thus is shared between the two countries....

 across the Río Uruguay north of Salto was a major boost to the development of the northern litoral in the 1970s. By contrast, the closure of the famous meat-packing plant at Fray Bentos

Fray Bentos

Fray Bentos, the capital of the Río Negro Department of western Uruguay, is a port on the Uruguay River. It is close to the border with Argentina and about due north of Buenos Aires.-History:...

 in the department of Río Negro transformed it into a virtual ghost town. Farther south, the litoral economy had benefited from completion of the General Artigas Bridge

General Artigas Bridge

The General Artigas Bridge is a road bridge that crosses the Uruguay River and joins Argentina and Uruguay. It runs between Colón, Entre Ríos Province, Argentina, and Paysandú, Paysandú Department, Uruguay. It is a cantilever bridge with a total length of 2,350 metres...

 across the Río Uruguay from Paysandú to the Argentine province of Entre Ríos

Entre Ríos Province

Entre Ríos is a northeastern province of Argentina, located in the Mesopotamia region. It borders the provinces of Buenos Aires , Corrientes and Santa Fe , and Uruguay in the east....

. However, the advent of a convenient (if circuitous) land route from Montevideo to Buenos Aires via the new bridge reduced freight and passenger traffic through the small port of Colonia

Colonia del Sacramento

Colonia del Sacramento is a city in southwestern Uruguay, by the Río de la Plata, facing Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the oldest town in Uruguay and capital of the departamento of Colonia. It has a population of around 22,000.It is renowned for its historic quarter, a World Heritage Site...

 on the Río de la Plata just opposite the Argentine capital. To compensate, the Uruguayan government encouraged the architectural restoration of Colonia, which was originally built by the Portuguese in colonial times. By 1990 Colonia had become one of Uruguay's most historic tourist attractions, and many of its houses had been bought by vacationers from Buenos Aires.

Greater Montevideo

According to the 2004 census, the population of the department of Montevideo was 1,325,968, and that of the neighboring department of Canelones was 485,240, out of a total population of 3,241,003. Thus, these departments and the eastern portion of San José, which together constituted the Greater Montevideo region, held over one-half of Uruguay's population. This monocephalic pattern of settlement was more pronounced in Uruguay than in any other nation of the world, barring citystates. The 2004 census indicated a population density of about 2,475 inhabitants per square kilometer in the department of Montevideo and about 80 inhabitants per square kilometer in the department of Canelones. Densities elsewhere in the country were dramatically lower.

Montevideo was originally founded on a promontory beside a large bay that forms a perfect natural harbor. In the 19th century, the British promoted it as a rival port to Buenos Aires. The city has expanded to such an extent that by 1990 it covered most of the department. The original area of settlement, known as the Old City, lies adjacent to the port, but the central business district and the middle-class residential areas have moved eastward. The only exception to this pattern of eastward expansion is that banking and finance continued to cluster in the Old City around the Stock Exchange, the Bank of Uruguay (Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay—BROU), and the Central Bank of Uruguay.

Since the 1950s, Montevideo's prosperous middle classes have tended to abandon the formerly fashionable downtown areas for the more modern high-rise apartment buildings of Pocitos

Pocitos

Pocitos is an upscale beach barrio in Uruguay's capital city, Montevideo.This area is located along the banks of the Rio de la Plata. The barrio is known for its beach, Playa Pocitos, and the Rambla, or boulevard, that lies alongside it...

, a beachfront neighborhood east of the center. Still farther east lies the expensive area of Carrasco

Carrasco, Montevideo

Carrasco is a barrio in Montevideo, Uruguay. It borders Punta Gorda to the west, Carrasco Norte to the north, Canelones Department to the east and the coastline to the south...

, a zone of modern luxury villas that has come to replace the old neighborhood of El Prado

Prado, Montevideo

Prado is a barrio and a major public park in Montevideo, Uruguay. Together with Nueva Savona, they form the Prado - Nueva Savona composite barrio....

 in the north of the city as home to the country's wealthy elite. Its beaches were less polluted than those closer to the center. Montevideo's Carrasco International Airport

Carrasco International Airport

Carrasco/General Cesáreo L. Berisso International Airport , commonly known simply by Aeropuerto Internacional de Carrasco in reference to the neighborhood where it is located, is the main airport serving Montevideo, Uruguay, located in the adjoining municipality of Ciudad de la Costa...

 is located nearby, crossing the border to Canelones Department. The capital's principal artery, 18 July Avenue, was long the principal shopping street of Montevideo, but it has been hurt since the mid-1980s by the construction of a modern shopping mall strategically located between Pocitos and Carrasco.

Montevideo's poorer neighborhoods tended to be located in the north of the city and around the bay in the areas of industrial activity. However, the degree of spatial separation of social classes was moderate by the standards of other cities in South America. Starting in the 1970s, the city began to acquire a belt of shantytowns around its outskirts, but in 1990 these remained small compared with Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

 or Guayaquil, for example. About 60,000 families lived in such shantytowns, known in Uruguay as cantegriles. An intensive program of public housing construction was undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s, but it had not solved the problem by 1990.

In 1990 Greater Montevideo was by far the most developed region of Uruguay and dominated the nation economically and culturally. It was home to the country's two universities, its principal hospitals, and most of its communications media (television stations, radio stations, newspapers, and magazines). Attempts by the military governments from 1973 to 1985 to promote the development of the north of the country (partly for strategic reasons) failed to change this pattern of extreme centralization. In one way, however, they achieved a major success: the introduction of direct dialing revolutionized the country's longdistance telephone system. By contrast, the local telephone network in Montevideo remained so hopelessly antiquated and unreliable that many firms relied on courier services to get messages to other downtown businesses.

Until the construction boom of the late 1970s, relatively few modern buildings had been constructed. In many parts of the center, elegant nineteenth-century houses built around a central patio were still to be seen in 1990. In some cases, the patio was open to the air, but in most cases it was covered by a skylight, some of which were made of elaborate stained glass. Few of these houses were used for single-family occupancy, however, and many had been converted into low-cost apartments.

The middle classes preferred to live in more modern apartments near the city center or the University of the Republic. Alternatively, they might purchase a single-family villa with a small yard at the back. Many of these were close to the beaches running east from the downtown along the avenue known as the Rambla. In Pocitos, however, high-rise apartments had replaced the single-family homes on those streets closest to the beach.

The coast

Stretching east from Montevideo along the Río de la Plata are the departments of Canelones, Maldonado, and Rocha. The inland portion of Canelones is an area of small farms and truck gardens, which produce vegetables for the capital. It was relatively poor in 1990. Many inhabitants of the department's small towns also commuted to jobs in Montevideo by express bus. Along the coast lie a string of small seaside towns (balnearios), from which more prosperous employees had also begun to commute. Farther east in the highly developed department of Maldonado lies the major resort of Punta del Este

Punta del Este

Punta del Este is a resort town on the Atlantic Coast in the Maldonado Department of southeastern Uruguay. It is located on the intersection of Route 10 with Route 39, directly southeast of the department capital Maldonado and about east of Montevideo...

. This has been developed as a fashionable playground more for Argentines than for average Uruguayans, who found it too expensive. With its hotels, restaurants, casino, and nightclubs, Punta del Este was a major export earner, and it dominated Uruguay's tourism industry.

Vacationing Uruguayans of more modest means were concentrated in smaller resorts such as Piriápolis and Atlántida, which are closer to Montevideo. Beyond Punta del Este in the still mostly undeveloped department of Rocha, a number of communities had sprouted along the unspoiled Atlantic coast with its kilometres of sandy beaches and huge breakers. These small vacation communities—such as Aguas Dulces and Cabo Polonio, both in Rocha Department—were entirely unplanned and lacked essential services. In many cases, simple holiday chalets had been built on public property adjoining the seashore without any legal title to the land. In 1990 the authorities in Rocha Department announced plans to regulate and improve this development in hopes of encouraging visits by higher-spending tourists.

Regional development

Uruguay's regions differed markedly not only in population size and density but also in their indexes of social and economic development, including education, health care, communications, energy consumption, and industrialization. Least developed were the northern ranching departments along the Brazilian border—Artigas, Rivera, and Cerro Largo—and also Tacuarembó. Somewhat more developed was a band of six departments stretching across the center of the country, from west to east: Río Negro, Flores, Florida, Durazno, Treinta y Tres, and Rocha. More industrialized and urbanized, but still quite poor, were the departments of Soriano and Salto, which, as noted previously, benefited from the construction of a bridge and a dam, respectively, across the Río Uruguay in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The two remaining western departments—Colonia and Paysandú—were the most developed of the littoral.

Three departments close to Montevideo—San José, Canelones, and Lavalleja—presented a contradictory picture of relatively advanced economic development combined with low indexes of social modernization. Finally, Montevideo and the department of Maldonado (which is strongly affected by the tourism industry in Punta del Este) had the highest indexes of social and economic development in the country.

Maritime claims:

continental shelf:
200-m depth or to the depth of exploitation

territorial sea:
200 nmi (370.4 km; 230.2 mi); overflight and navigation guaranteed beyond 12 nmi (22.2 km; 13.8 mi)

Natural resources:
arable land

Arable land

In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...

, hydropower

Hydropower

Hydropower, hydraulic power, hydrokinetic power or water power is power that is derived from the force or energy of falling water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. Since ancient times, hydropower has been used for irrigation and the operation of various mechanical devices, such as...

, minor minerals, fisheries
Irrigated land:
7,700 km² (1997 est.)

Environment - current issues:
water pollution from meat packing/tannery industry; inadequate solid/hazardous waste

Hazardous waste

A hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. According to the U.S. environmental laws hazardous wastes fall into two major categories: characteristic wastes and listed wastes.Characteristic hazardous wastes are materials that are known...

 disposal

Environment - international agreements:

party to:
Antarctic Treaty, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Biodiversity

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

, Climate Change

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14, 1992...

, Desertification

Desertification

Desertification is the degradation of land in drylands. Caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities, desertification is one of the most significant global environmental problems.-Definitions:...

, Endangered Species

Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Kyoto Protocol

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , aimed at fighting global warming...

, Law of the Sea

Law of the sea

Law of the sea may refer to:* United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea* Admiralty law* The Custom of the Sea...

, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands, Whaling

Whaling

Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

signed, but not ratified:
Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation

Antipodes

Uruguay is only marginally antipodal

Antipodes

In geography, the antipodes of any place on Earth is the point on the Earth's surface which is diametrically opposite to it. Two points that are antipodal to one another are connected by a straight line running through the centre of the Earth....

 to any other land mass. The northern corner on the Argentinian border, north and south of the town of Salto

Salto, Uruguay

Salto is the capital city of the Salto Department in northwestern Uruguay and the second largest city of the country. It is located on Route 3, about northwest of Montevideo, and on the east bank of Río Uruguay, across the city Concordia of Argentina...

, are opposite a few small islands and bits of coast off Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

. The eastern corner on the Brazilian border, including the town of Cebollatí, overlaps half the South Korean island of Jeju, while the eastern coast corresponds to some small islands off the southwestern tip of South Korea, such as Jindo Island

Jindo Island

Jindo Island is the third largest island in South Korea. Together with a group of much smaller islands, it forms Jindo County.It is located in South Jeolla province, just off the southwest corner of the Korean peninsula...

 (≈ Cabo Polonio

Cabo Polonio

Cabo Polonio is a caserío located in the eastern coast of Uruguay in the Rocha Department.Cabo Polonio has no roads leading to it and is located about 7 km from the main highway. It is accessible by walking through the dunes or by 4x4 vehicles...

).