40 Fun Facts About Montevideo

Which German warship did its own captain scuttle off Montevideo in 1939 rather than fight on?

Graf Spee had limped into the neutral port for repairs after a battle with three cruisers. Fooled by false reports of a waiting fleet, Captain Hans Langsdorff blew her up to spare his crew.

The Montevideo team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972, stranding survivors for 72 days, played which sport?

Rugby union's Old Christians Club had chartered the flight from Carrasco airport. Only 16 of the 45 people aboard came home, and a museum in Montevideo's historic centre tells their story.

Which country did Uruguay beat 4–2 in Montevideo in 1930 to win the very first World Cup final?

Argentina brought so many fans across from Buenos Aires that Montevideo's port was overwhelmed, and many never reached the stadium. The hosts sealed the win with a goal just before full time.

Which Montevideo tower, finished in 1928, was briefly Latin America's tallest building?

Palacio Salvo was given a rooftop lighthouse that, the story goes, was meant to meet the beam of its twin tower in Buenos Aires. The two lights never met.

Montevideo's Carnival, with its drum parades and street stages, is considered the world's what?

The longest carnival in the world runs from mid-January to late February. In Montevideo that means up to 40 days of parades and open-air stages called tablados.

Punta Carretas Shopping, a Montevideo mall opened in 1994, occupies a building that began as what?

A prison from 1915 until 1986, it is best remembered for 1971, when more than 100 jailed guerrillas escaped through a tunnel dug to a nearby house.

Which world-famous tango began as a carnival march by a teenage Montevideo architecture student?

La Cumparsita was the work of 18-year-old Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, and a café bandleader reworked it into a tango. A tango museum now marks the spot where it was first played.

Which hero of Italian unification raised a legion to defend besieged Montevideo in the 1840s?

Giuseppe Garibaldi also commanded Uruguay's fleet during the long siege. Popular history says his men first wore their famous red shirts here, bought from a Montevideo factory.

Montevideo sits on which estuary, sometimes described as the widest river in the world?

Río de la Plata widens to about 220 kilometres at its mouth, where it meets the Atlantic. Buenos Aires lies upstream to the west, on the opposite bank.

Which US state has a small city named Montevideo that swapped flags with Uruguay's capital in 1905?

Minnesota's Montevideo is a county seat of only a few thousand people. The friendship began when the two mayors each sent the other a national flag.

Which country's Lucien Laurent scored the first goal in World Cup history, in Montevideo in 1930?

France beat Mexico 4–1 that day, and Laurent's goal was a volley in the 19th minute. Another opening match kicked off across Montevideo at exactly the same time.

What is the name of Montevideo's coastal avenue, which runs unbroken for more than 22 kilometres?

The Rambla follows the whole shoreline, and locals use it for jogging, fishing and kite-flying. Uruguay has proposed it as a World Heritage site.

Which caffeine-rich herbal drink do Montevideo locals sip from a gourd through a metal straw?

Mate is Uruguay's national drink, and Uruguayans consume more of it per person than any other country. The metal straw doubles as a sieve to hold back the leaves.

Mercado del Puerto, built as Montevideo's produce market, is famous for restaurants serving what?

Grilled meat cooks over open-fire parrillas beneath an iron frame that was cast in Liverpool. The market opened to supply fruit, vegetables and meat to ships in the bay.

Which national hero's remains lie in a mausoleum beneath his statue in Montevideo's main square?

José Artigas died in Paraguay in 1850, and his remains were later brought home. An honour guard drawn from the corps he first served in keeps permanent watch over the urn.

Which trade bloc has its headquarters in Montevideo, inviting comparisons with Brussels?

Mercosur's parliament also meets in the city, in a former hotel beside Parque Rodó. A second regional bloc, ALADI, keeps its head office in Montevideo too.

Which European power's garrison did Spain expel from Montevideo in 1724 before founding the city?

Portugal, already established at Colonia do Sacramento, had built a small fort on the bay only months earlier. Spain answered by planting a town of its own on the spot.

A popular legend says a sailor on whose 1520 voyage named Montevideo by shouting that he saw a hill?

Ferdinand Magellan's crew did sight the hill in January 1520, and a boatswain's log calls it Monte Vidi. Most experts doubt the shouted phrase, and the name's origin is still disputed.

The 1933 Montevideo Convention is known in international law for setting out four criteria for what?

Statehood, under the treaty signed in Montevideo, takes a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to deal with other countries.

Which body declared Montevideo's Estadio Centenario a Historical Monument of World Football in 1983?

FIFA has never given the title to another building. The stadium went up in about nine months, built by immigrant workers in time for the first World Cup.

Estadio Centenario in Montevideo was named for the 100th anniversary of which national milestone?

The first constitution was sworn on 18 July 1830, and the stadium opened exactly a century later to the day. Montevideo's main avenue is named for the same date.

Which Montevideo-born architect of Paris's Opéra Bastille also designed his home city's Antel tower?

Carlos Ott won the Paris commission in an international competition in 1983. His Antel tower, beside Montevideo Bay, became the tallest building in Uruguay.

Which Afro-Uruguayan drum music from Montevideo did UNESCO add to its heritage list in 2009?

Candombe is played on three barrel drums called chico, repique and piano. Its carnival parades are known as llamadas, or calls, after the drumbeats that once summoned people into the street.

Montevideo's Tristán Narvaja flea market fills the streets of the Cordón district on which day of the week?

Sunday mornings bring stalls of antiques, books, pets, fruit and vegetables, running from very early until mid-afternoon. The street is named after a 19th-century lawmaker.

UNESCO added Montevideo to its Creative Cities Network in 2015 for which art form?

Literature runs deep in a city that produced Eduardo Galeano, whose Open Veins of Latin America was banned by Uruguay's military government.

Which Montevideo-born singer and doctor won a Best Original Song Oscar for The Motorcycle Diaries?

Jorge Drexler became the first Uruguayan to win an Oscar, and it was the first time a Spanish-language song took the award. He was not allowed to perform it at the ceremony.

Which Montevideo football giant traces its origins to an 1891 cricket club for railway workers?

Peñarol counts the Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club as its beginning. Its name comes from a district on the city's edge, itself named after Pinerolo, a town near Turin.

Alexandre Dumas named his 1850 book about the long siege of Montevideo after which ancient city?

Troy suited a city that held out for eight years, from 1843 to 1851, supplied by sea the whole time. Dumas called his book The New Troy.

Which stone covers the walls and columns of Montevideo's Legislative Palace, inaugurated in 1925?

Marble in many varieties, all of it from Uruguay, lines the building. Its first architect died before he could be told that his design had won the competition.

Many of Montevideo's first settler families in the 1720s arrived from which Atlantic island group?

The Canary Islands sent families to join the first six households, who had moved across from Buenos Aires. The plan of the new town named it San Felipe y Santiago de Montevideo.

On Uruguay's coat of arms, the fortress-topped hill of Montevideo stands as a symbol of what?

Strength is the hill's meaning on the shield, which sits beneath a rising golden sun. The real fortress on the summit was the last Spanish fort built in Uruguay.

The gateway on Montevideo's main square is the only surviving part of which colonial structure?

The citadel was demolished in 1877, but its gateway was taken apart piece by piece and re-erected as the back gate of a trade school. In 1959 it returned to the edge of the main square.

Which guerrilla group, named after an 18th-century Peruvian rebel, robbed banks in 1960s Montevideo?

Tupamaros took their name from Túpac Amaru II and handed stolen food and money to Montevideo's poor. Former member José Mujica was later elected president of Uruguay.

Emperor Pedro I named Montevideo an Imperial City when it was a provincial capital of which empire?

Brazil held Montevideo as capital of its Cisplatina province during the 1820s. Uruguay emerged as an independent country in 1828, with the city as its capital.

Which Montevideo-born striker won the Golden Ball as the best player of the 2010 World Cup?

Diego Forlán scored five goals as Uruguay reached the semi-finals. He grew up in Carrasco, the seaside district at Montevideo's eastern edge.

A midday water and cider fight fills the streets by Montevideo's Mercado del Puerto on which day?

New Year's Eve brings a large street festival to the old market at midday, drawing local residents and foreign visitors alike.

Spain's main South Atlantic naval base from 1776, Montevideo had authority over which island group?

The Falklands answered to Montevideo's naval station, the Real Apostadero de Marina, and so did distant Fernando Po. Until 1829 the port city sat behind a protective wall.

Which Spanish governor of Buenos Aires founded Montevideo in the 1720s to block a rival empire?

Bruno Mauricio de Zabala recorded 24 December 1726 as the founding date in his diary. An equestrian statue of him stands in the plaza that bears his name.

Montevideo-born poet Isidore Ducasse wrote Les Chants de Maldoror under which pen name?

Comte de Lautréamont was baptised in Montevideo's cathedral and lived through the end of the eight-year siege as a small child. His book became a major influence on the Surrealists.

Montevideo's Solís Theatre, which opened in 1856, is named after a man remembered as what?

An explorer, Juan Díaz de Solís is said to have been the first European to land in what is now Uruguay, in 1516. He was killed on that same voyage.