Paseo del Uruguay
An interior avenue of the Retiro Park named for the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, which gained independence in 1825 and was recognized by Spain in the 1870 Treaty of Peace and Friendship. The name dates from the early 20th century, part of the Hispano-American movement spurred by the Hispanic-American Social and Economic Congress of 1900.
The Paseo del Uruguay runs through the Retiro among the many avenues the park devotes to the Ibero-American republics. That roster was named around 1900, for the Hispanic-American Social and Economic Congress that Madrid hosted that year. There was a note of redress in it: as the last colonies were lost, several American streets had been renamed for Spanish military men, and the Retiro answered by embroidering the map of the Americas into its own geography.
The avenue starts at the Glorieta del Ángel Caído, passes the Rosaleda and ends near the Puerta de Granada. The name honors not the river but the nation: the Oriental Republic of Uruguay declared its independence in 1825, and Spain recognized it in 1870.
Sources (6)
- Ginkana por la presencia de Iberoamérica en el Retiro, a través de su toponimia (OEI / UCCI, 2022)
- Tratado de Reconocimiento, Paz y Amistad entre Uruguay y España (1870) — Wikisource
- Puerta de Granada del Retiro — Patrimonio cultural y paisaje urbano, Ayuntamiento de Madrid
- La Rosaleda del Retiro — Wikipedia
- El Retiro cumple 150 años como parque público — Ayuntamiento de Madrid
- Callejero oficial del Ayuntamiento de Madrid — Portal de datos abiertos