Salto

Salto began as a military camp. In October 1756, during the Guarani War, the Spanish governor José Joaquín de Viana built sheds for his army near the falls of the Uruguay River, named San Antonio del Salto Chico; 8 November 1756 is kept as the city's founding date. A fort called San Antonio, with a chapel dedicated to St Anthony of Padua, followed in 1757. In 1768 Spanish troops sent to expel the Jesuits occupied it and used it as an arms depot and as a prison for priests. After a flood the fort was rebuilt on the western bank, where Concordia now stands, and by 1782 the settlement had permanent residents.

In December 1811, during the Exodus of the Western People, Artigas and thousands of soldiers and civilians camped for a month on the river close to Salto before crossing into what is now Argentina. Salto was recognised as a town in 1835 and made capital of its department in 1837. During the civil war, Giuseppe Garibaldi's Italian and Uruguayan troops seized it in late 1845, and on 8 February 1846 he defeated an opposing army at the San Antonio Chico creek outside the town. Salto became a city in 1863.

In the 19th century the Basque immigrant Pascual Harriague planted the Tannat grape here. The Salto Grande dam, built jointly with Argentina between 1974 and 1979, changed the river and linked the two countries by bridge. In the late 2010s the city saw a rise in drug-related crime, and in February 2024 its airport reopened after renovation.

Salto is proud of its writers and its footballers. The short-story writer Horacio Quiroga was born here in 1878, and his house is now a museum; the novelist Enrique Amorim was born here in 1900. Luis Suárez and Edinson Cavani were both born in Salto in 1987 and went on to win the 2011 Copa América with Uruguay. Locally, Salto Fútbol Club plays at the Estadio Ernesto Dickinson, which holds about 6,500, and the city was one of the hosts of the 1967 Basketball World Cup.

The city holds a large number of works by the engineer Eladio Dieste — an industrial warehouse, an inn, the municipal bus terminal and a private bus company terminal — and the city honours him with the memorial at its entrance known as La Gaviota, the Seagull. The Teatro Larrañaga and the Ateneo, a cultural centre whose present building opened in 1895, are the historic stages, and an International Cultural Centre was founded in 1990.

Everyday culture is outdoors. Young people drink mate, go dancing at night and cross to Concordia to shop at weekends, and on weekend nights Calle Uruguay fills with people strolling and sharing a gourd. Facing Argentina across the river, the city looks west as much as east towards Montevideo.

About 114,000 people lived in the city at the 2023 census, making it the second most populated city in Uruguay after Montevideo. It is the centre of the country's citrus-growing region, and the regional hospital, education, commerce and tourism at the hot springs are other mainstays. The business district is on and around Calle Uruguay; the residential barrios, among them Cerro, Salto Nuevo and Ceibal, spread over the low hills behind it, served by fourteen municipal bus lines.

The rhythm is that of the interior: long lunches, a siesta in the summer heat, evening walks along the riverfront and football at weekends. Ties with Concordia, a larger Argentine city of about 179,000 across the river, are close; young people cross to shop there at weekends.

Current concerns include the rise in crime linked to drug trafficking since the late 2010s, the city's exposure to dengue fever, which Aedes mosquitoes carry in the region, and the hope among local businesses that the renovated airport will grow, including for shipping fruit.

Eating in Salto follows the interior's ranch tradition. The parrilla, or grill, turns out beef, chorizo and morcilla sausages and offal over wood embers, and the asado is as much a social occasion as a meal. The chivito, Uruguay's national sandwich of thin steak with ham, cheese, egg and salad, is a staple of the diners along Calle Uruguay. Winter brings guiso carrero, a rice or noodle stew with meat and vegetables, and puchero, and tortas fritas, fried dough, go with the afternoon mate.

The river and the orchards add their own flavours. Freshwater fish are caught in the Uruguay River, and the department grows much of the country's citrus. Wine has a local story too: it was in Salto that Pascual Harriague planted the Tannat grape, the red grape that became Uruguay's flagship wine and is also known in the country by his name.

Mate, the bitter herbal infusion drunk from a shared gourd through a metal straw, is the constant companion, from the riverside benches to the thermal pools.