Calle del Paraguay

The name comes from Paraguay, the landlocked republic at the heart of South America, watered by the river of the same name. The street belongs to one of the most coherent stretches of Madrid’s street map: the area linking the Hispanoamérica and Nueva España neighborhoods, where almost every road honors a nation, a capital or a hero from across the Atlantic. In a few blocks you pass from Honduras to Bolivia and from Costa Rica to the Dominican Republic. The place name comes from Guaraní, an official language alongside Spanish in that country. The most common readings tie it to the great river and to water, “river of the sea dwellers” or “water that goes to the sea,” though its exact meaning is still debated. The cluster of American street names took shape in the mid-20th century, when these northern neighborhoods were built on former land at the city’s edge. Paraguay runs between neighbors named for other republics, between the Paseo de la Castellana and the M-30.