Italian Uruguayans

Italian Uruguayans (italo-uruguaiani; ítalo-uruguayos) are Uruguayan-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Uruguay during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Uruguay. Outside of Italy, Uruguay has one of the highest percentages of Italians in the world. It is estimated that about 44% of the total population of Uruguay are of Italian descent, corresponding to about 1,500,000 people, while there were around 90,000 Italian citizens in Uruguay. Outside of Italy, Uruguay has one of the highest percentages of Italians in the world. An estimated 1,500,000 Uruguayans have Italian ancestry, about 44% of the total population of Uruguay. Italian immigration to Uruguay refers to one of the largest migratory movements Uruguay has received. The population of Italian origin, together with that of Spanish origin, forms the backbone of Uruguayan society. Like that of its neighboring country, Argentina, Uruguayan culture bears important similarities to Italian culture in terms of language, customs and traditions. Italian emigrants began to arrive in Uruguay in large numbers in the 1840s and this migratory flow continued until the 1960s. In 1527 Venetian explorer Sebastiano Caboto founded San Lázaro, the first European settlement on the Río de la Plata. The first Italians arrived in the Spanish colony in the 16th century. These were, mainly, Ligurians from the Republic of Genoa, who worked on transoceanic merchant ships. The first inhabitant of Montevideo was the Genoese Giorgio Borghese (who Hispanicized his name to Jorge Burgues), who built a stone house on a ranch where he raised cattle before the city was founded. Sailing in the service of the Spanish crown, the Tuscan sailor Alessandro Malaspina undertook a scientific voyage known as the Malaspina Expedition, which led him to explore the coasts of Montevideo in 1789. On board two corvettes traveled botanists, zoologists, draftsmen, doctors, dissectors, geographers, astronomers and hydrographers, whose objectives were to carry out a cartography of the Río de la Plata and observe astronomical phenomena.