Editing Geography of Uruguay (section)

===Greater Montevideo===
{{main|Montevideo metropolitan area}}
According to the 2004 census, the population of the department of Montevideo was 1,325,968,<ref name=":1">[http://www.ine.gub.uy/fase1new/Montevideo/Cuadro7_01.XLS 2004 census Montevideo Department] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111203194404/http://www.ine.gub.uy/fase1new/Montevideo/Cuadro7_01.XLS |date=December 3, 2011 }}</ref> and that of the neighboring department of Canelones was 485,240,<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |url=http://www.ine.gub.uy/fase1new/Canelones/Cuadro7_03.XLS |title=2004 census Canelones Department |access-date=2011-06-12 |archive-date=2011-07-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721211604/http://www.ine.gub.uy/fase1new/Canelones/Cuadro7_03.XLS |url-status=dead }}</ref> out of a total population of 3,241,003.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |url=http://www.ine.gub.uy/fase1new/TotalPais/divulgacion_TotalPais.asp |title=2004 census Totals |access-date=2011-06-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110809070951/http://www.ine.gub.uy/fase1new/TotalPais/divulgacion_TotalPais.asp |archive-date=2011-08-09 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Thus, these departments and the eastern portion of San José, which together constituted the Greater Montevideo region, held over one-half of Uruguay's population.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />

This monocephalic pattern of settlement was more pronounced in Uruguay than in any other nation of the world, barring city-states.<ref name=":0" /> The 1985 census indicated a population density of about 2,475 inhabitants per square kilometer in the department of Montevideo and about 80 inhabitants per square kilometer in the department of Canelones.<ref name=":0" /> Densities elsewhere in the country were dramatically lower.<ref name=":0" />

Montevideo was founded on a promontory beside a large bay that forms a perfect natural harbor.<ref name=":0" /> In the 19th century, the British promoted it as a rival port to Buenos Aires.<ref name=":0" /> The city has expanded to such an extent that by 1990 it covered most of the department.<ref name=":0" /> The original area of settlement, known as the Old City, lies adjacent to the port, but the central business district and the middle-class residential areas have moved eastward.<ref name=":0" /> The only exception to this pattern of eastward expansion is that banking and finance continued to cluster in the Old City around the Stock Exchange, the Bank of Uruguay (Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay—BROU), and the Central Bank of Uruguay.<ref name=":0" />

Since the 1950s, Montevideo's prosperous middle classes have tended to abandon the formerly fashionable downtown areas for the more modern high-rise apartment buildings of [[Pocitos]], a beachfront neighborhood east of the center.<ref name=":0" /> Still farther east lies the expensive area of [[Carrasco, Montevideo|Carrasco]], a zone of modern luxury villas that has come to replace the old neighborhood of [[Prado, Montevideo|El Prado]] in the north of the city as home to the country's wealthy elite.<ref name=":0" /> Its beaches were less polluted than those closer to the center.<ref name=":0" /> Montevideo's [[Carrasco International Airport]] is located nearby,<ref name=":0" /> crossing the border to Canelones Department.{{Fact|date=June 2021}} The capital's principal artery, 18 July Avenue, was long the principal shopping street of Montevideo, but it has been hurt since the mid-1980s by the construction of a modern shopping mall strategically located between Pocitos and Carrasco.<ref name=":0" />

Montevideo's poorer neighborhoods tended to be located in the north of the city and around the bay in the areas of industrial activity.<ref name=":0" /> However, the degree of spatial separation of social classes was moderate by the standards of other cities in South America.<ref name=":0" /> Starting in the 1970s, the city began to acquire a belt of shantytowns around its outskirts, but in 1990 these remained small compared with [[Rio de Janeiro]] or Guayaquil, for example.<ref name=":0" /> About 60,000 families lived in such shantytowns, known in Uruguay as ''cantegriles''.<ref name=":0" /> An intensive program of public housing construction was undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s, but it had not solved the problem by 1990.<ref name=":0" />

In 1990 Greater Montevideo was by far the most developed region of Uruguay and dominated the nation economically and culturally.<ref name=":0" /> It was home to the country's two universities, its principal hospitals, and most of its communications media (television stations, radio stations, newspapers, and magazines).<ref name=":0" /> Attempts by the military governments from 1973 to 1985 to promote the development of the north of the country (partly for strategic reasons) failed to change this pattern of extreme centralization.<ref name=":0" /> In one way, however, they achieved a major success: the introduction of direct dialing revolutionized the country's long distance telephone system.<ref name=":0" /> By contrast, the local telephone network in Montevideo remained so hopelessly antiquated and unreliable that many firms relied on courier services to get messages to other downtown businesses.<ref name=":0" />

Until the construction boom of the late 1970s, relatively few modern buildings had been constructed.<ref name=":0" /> In many parts of the center, elegant nineteenth-century houses built around a central patio were still to be seen in 1990.<ref name=":0" /> In some cases, the patio was open to the air, but in most cases it was covered by a skylight, some of which were made of elaborate stained glass.<ref name=":0" /> Few of these houses were used for single-family occupancy, however, and many had been converted into low-cost apartments.<ref name=":0" />

The middle classes preferred to live in more modern apartments near the city center or the University of the Republic.<ref name=":0" /> Alternatively, they might purchase a single-family villa with a small yard at the back.<ref name=":0" /> Many of these were close to the beaches running east from the downtown along the avenue known as the Rambla.<ref name=":0" /> In Pocitos, however, high-rise apartments had replaced the single-family homes on those streets closest to the beach.<ref name=":0" />