River Plate
From Freepedia
- This page discusses the estuary. For the football (soccer) team, see Club Atlético River Plate.
Image:River Plate.jpg Image:Rio de la Plata BA 2.JPG
The River Plate (Spanish: Río de la Plata) is the estuary formed from the combination of the Uruguay River and the Parana River. It is a funnel-shaped indentation on the southeastern coast of South America, 290 km (180 miles) long.
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, which makes it the widest river in the world. It forms part of the border between Argentina and Uruguay, with the major ports of Buenos Aires in the southwest and Montevideo in the northeast.
An estimated 57 million m³ (2 billion cubic feet) of silt is carried into the estuary each year, where the muddy waters are stirred up by winds and tides. The shipping route from the Atlantic to Buenos Aires is kept open by constant dredging.
History
The river was first sighted by Spanish seaman Juan Díaz de Solís in 1516 in his search for a passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. He disembarked with a group of men in what today is the 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 years 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 in command of Sebastián Gaboto, "a huge native making signals and yelling from the coast" was seen; when disembarked, they found Francisco del Puerto, brought up as a charrúa warrior. He went back with the Spaniards and, after some time, returned to the native country, leaving no further register of his whereabouts.
First emplacement was the actual city of Buenos Aires, founded by Pedro de Mendoza on February 2nd 1536, abandoned and founded again by Juan de Garay on June 11th 1580.
The English name "River Plate" is a corruption of the Spanish Río de la Plata, meaning "Silver River", referring not to colour but to the riches of the fabled Sierra del Plata thought to lie upstream.
The River Plate is also a habitat for the rare La Plata Dolphin.
The Second World War naval engagement the Battle of the River Plate occurred several miles off the coast of the estuary. The German battleship Admiral Graf Spee put into port and later scuttled herself in the estuary.
