Río de la Plata

The Río de la Plata (Spanish: "Silver River") — which is often referred to in English-speaking countries as the River Plate (as in the Battle of the River Plate), or sometimes as the [La] Plata River — is the estuary formed by the combination of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River. It is a funnel-shaped indentation on the southeastern coastline of South America, extending 290 km (180 miles) from the rivers' confluence to the Atlantic Ocean.

Where the rivers join, it is 48 km (30 miles) wide, and it runs to the southeast growing to 220 km (136 miles) wide where it opens on the Atlantic Ocean, making it the widest estuary in the world. It forms part of the border between Argentina and Uruguay, with the major ports and capital cities of Buenos Aires in the southwest and Montevideo in the northeast. Martín García island, off the coast of Uruguay, is under Argentine sovereignty.

The basin drained by the main tributaries of the Río de la Plata (the Uruguay and Paraná, and the important Paraná tributary, the Paraguay) covers approximately one fifth of South America, including area in southeastern Bolivia, southern and central Brazil, the entire nation of Paraguay, most of Uruguay and northern Argentina. An estimated 57 million cubic metres (2 billion cubic feet) of silt is carried into the estuary each year, where the muddy waters are stirred up by winds and the tides. The shipping route from the Atlantic to Buenos Aires is kept open by constant dredging.

History

The river's first sighting by a European was in 1516, when Spanish seaman Juan Díaz de Solís discovered it during his search for a passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. He and a group of his men disembarked in what is today the Uruguayan Department of Colonia and were attacked by the natives (probably Guaraní although for a long time the fact was adjudicated to the Charrúas). Only one of them survived, a 14-year-old cabin boy named Francisco del Puerto, allegedly because the natives' culture prevented them from killing elderly people, women and children.

Years later, from a ship commanded by Sebastián Gaboto, "a huge native making signals and yelling from the coast" was seen; when some of the crew disembarked, they found Francisco del Puerto, brought up as a Charrúa warrior. He went back with the Spaniards and, after some time, returned to Uruguay, leaving no further trace of his whereabouts.

The area was visited by Francis Drake's fleet in early 1578, in the early stages of his circumnavigation. The first European colony was the city of Buenos Aires, founded by Pedro de Mendoza on 2 February 1536, abandoned and founded again by Juan de Garay on 11 June 1580.

An early World War II naval engagement between the German "pocket battleship" (heavy cruiser) Admiral Graf Spee and British ships, the Battle of the River Plate, started several miles off the coast of the estuary. The German ship retired up the estuary and put into port. A few days later, rather than fight she was scuttled in the estuary.

Name

The English name "River Plate" is not a mistranslation, but in fact "plate" was used extensively as a noun for "silver" or "gold" from the 12th century onwards, especially in Early Modern English and the estuary has been known as the River Plate or Plate River in English since at least the time of Francis Drake. A modern translation of the Spanish Río de la Plata is "Silver River", referring not to colour but to the riches of the fabled Sierra del Plata thought to lie upstream.

Fauna

The Río de la Plata is a habitat for the rare La Plata Dolphin, sea turtles (Caretta caretta, Chelonia mydas, and Dermochelys coriacea), and many species of fish.

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