Montevideo

Relaxed, walkable, and quietly prosperous, Montevideo is the southernmost capital in the Americas and home to nearly half of all Uruguayans. Spread along a curving bay where the Rio de la Plata meets the Atlantic, the city pairs faded art deco architecture and a handsome colonial old town with a long seafront promenade, the rambla, where locals stroll with their mate gourds at dusk. Its understated charm, low crime, and progressive politics have given Montevideo a reputation as one of Latin America's most livable cities.

The city sits almost at sea level on the north bank of the vast Rio de la Plata estuary, built around a natural harbour overlooked by a low hill, the Cerro, that gave the city its name. A 22-kilometre waterfront promenade runs along beaches and bay, defining the rhythm of urban life. The flat coastal setting and temperate climate, with warm summers and mild winters, make for an unhurried port city whose grid of leafy streets opens onto wide plazas and a working harbour.

The Spanish established Montevideo in 1724 as a fortress to check Portuguese expansion from Brazil, and its sheltered port soon rivalled Buenos Aires across the river. Waves of Italian and Spanish immigrants shaped its culture, cuisine, and the candombe drumming brought by enslaved Africans and their descendants. As the capital of independent Uruguay, the city has long punched above its weight, an early adopter of welfare reforms, public education, and more recently some of the region's most liberal social laws.

• Uruguay
  A small, stable land of grass and coast capital of
• South America
  A continent of the Andes, the Amazon, and dazzling extremes located on
• Buenos Aires
  Argentina's capital, a European-flavoured metropolis on the Rio de la Plata nearby city