Montevideo station
Metrobús · 3 6 Line 3 and Line 6
Lines and neighbouring stations
- 3Line 3Poniente 146 Montevideo Poniente 134
- 6Line 6Norte 45 Montevideo Montevideo
Transfers to other networks
The story behind the icon
The station icon represents the General Artigas fortress, which stands on the summit of the Cerro de Montevideo. The station takes its name from nearby Eje 5 Norte Montevideo. Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay and lies on the shore of the Río de la Plata. It covers an area of 530 square kilometres, roughly 60% of it rural and the remaining 40% built up, and has a population of 1,330,405.
It is the youngest capital in Latin America, founded between 1724 and 1730 by the Governor of Buenos Aires, Don Bruno Mauricio de Zabala. It came into being for strategic reasons of the Spanish Crown, which sought to establish there the second stronghold in the Americas after Cartagena de Indias. It is the southernmost capital in the Americas and, as the gateway to the Río de la Plata and the access to the inland Uruguay, Paraná and Paraguay rivers, it became established as a military bastion on the frontier disputed between Spain and Portugal.
The city of San Felipe y Santiago de Montevideo, as Governor Zabala named it, was settled by people from the Canary Islands who joined other families arriving from Buenos Aires; its original layout was that of the typical colonial city, a grid surrounded by walls. Thanks to its livestock wealth and its unbeatable geographical position, it grew as a port city until it became the capital of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay. It is a contemporary metropolis concentrating a high proportion of the country's economic activity, trade and services, banking and tourism; it has the finest natural harbour in southern America. Montevideo is the Latin American city with the highest quality of life and ranks among the 30 safest cities in the world. Its climate is temperate, averaging 16 °C over the year. In the early twentieth century many Europeans, above all from Spain and Italy, immigrated to the city, and before 1908 30% of the population was foreign-born.
Urban development makes it hard to appreciate the relief of the area, which has some gentle undulations; its highest point is the Cerro de Montevideo, which appears in the upper right quarter of Uruguay's coat of arms as a symbol of strength and stands beside the bay of Montevideo. At 136 metres high, it was a strategic point for protecting the harbour during the colonisation of the Americas. In 1799, by order of the Royal Crown of Spain, a lighthouse was built on a circular tower at a height of 148 metres at the top of the Cerro de Montevideo, making the entrance to the harbour safer; in 1809 the fortress was built to protect the lighthouse, a pentagonal enclosure covering almost 700 m2. It was restored in 1931 and, now known as the General Artigas Fortress, is used as a museum