Artigas, Uruguay

Artigas is a city on Uruguay's border with Brazil and the capital of the Artigas Department. It is named for José Gervasio Artigas, the national hero who fought for the emancipation of the River Plate region and hoped to build a federative nation out of its former colonies. The settlement began on 12 September 1852, when Don Carlos Catalá founded it as a town called San Eugenio del Cuareim. It became the capital of the department on 5 September 1884, and on 31 August 1915 it took its present name and was raised in status from villa to ciudad. A river separates it from the Brazilian town of Quaraí, which can be reached by a bridge. At about 600 kilometres from Montevideo it is the farthest city in Uruguay from the national capital. Its economy centres on trading grain crops, chiefly maize, with Argentina and Brazil, and on agate and amethyst, first found in the surrounding hills in 1860 and mined ever since. Its population was 43,897 in 2023, the eleventh largest in the country.