With an area of approximately 176,000 square kilometres (68,000 sq mi), Uruguay is the second-smallest nation in South America by area, after Suriname.
Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay and consists of about half the country's population. People refer to Montevideo as being Uruguay, with just a few surrounding towns as it's the only really big city in the country, with an estimated 1.8million of the 3.3million population. Uruguay has a really European feel to it in many ways as there are so many European settlers here (an estimated 88% of the population are of European ancestry). Sadly nearly all the indigenous people were killed in the 1800s so now there are no truly indigenous Uruguayans, but rather Uruguayans of European descent, such as German, Swiss, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish predominantly.
It's a beautiful country with a farming feel to it, which makes sense as agriculture is a big part of the economy. The service industry is also apparently well developed in this country. Uruguay is not very religious at all, with the majority of the population not believing in any form of religion, let alone Christianity. With about 3-4% of the population being Christian there are no large churches, there's one church with about 1000 people but that's it, the rest have at most a couple of hundred, most of them under 100. It's a spiritually dark place to minister, known as the missionary's graveyard because many missionaries have felt forced out of the country as it's hard here. This we can vouch for as being true as we have had quite a few challenges to deal with as a team, it has been a very weird place for us to be, great ministry opportunities on the one hand, but in the natural it's been very hard with lots of things going wrong and knocking us down. But it's all good and we continue to press on, not letting anything hold us back or distract us :)
Some interesting general knowledge facts...
Uruguay is one of the most economically developed countries in South America, with a high GDP per capita and the 48th highest Human Development Index in the world as of 2011, and the first by human development in Latin America, when inequality is factored in. Uruguay is also noted for its low levels of corruption, being ranked by Transparency International as the second least corrupt country in Latin America (behind Chile). Its political and labor conditions are among the freest on the continent. Reader's Digest ranked Uruguay as the ninth "most livable and greenest" country in the world, and first in all the Americas. This I can believe as we have driven through many miles of beautiful farmlands. Uruguay was the first South American country to legalize same-sex and different-sex civil unions at a national level, and to allow gay adoption. Uruguay and Bolivia were the only countries in the Americas which did not go into recession (2 consecutive quarters of retraction) as a result of the late-2000s financial crisis. It was the first nation in the Americas to test hemp cultivation. And last but not least, and this I think is super interesting, in 2009 Uruguay became the first nation in the world to provide every school child with a free laptop and internet.
A misty day through the farmlands
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