Las Piedras, Uruguay

Las Piedras is a city in the Canelones Department of Uruguay and the seat of the Municipality of Las Piedras. It lies in the southern part of the department on the banks of the Las Piedras Creek and forms part of the Montevideo metropolitan area, where it makes a continuous urban area with La Paz, Progreso and 18 de Mayo. The 2023 census recorded 61,292 inhabitants, who are known as pedrenses. The name, Spanish for the stones, comes from the large rocks at a ford on the creek, a crossing point on the road between Montevideo and the countryside that became known as the Paso de Las Piedras. According to the local Historical Association, the founding process of the present-day city began on 8 March 1744 with a donation of a one-square-league plot of land. A settlement of farms, a chapel and local businesses grew through the second half of the eighteenth century, the chapel dedicated to Saint Isidore the Laborer was established in 1765 and became a parish in 1780. Granite deposits around the city have long been associated with local quarrying.