South America
To which language should you translate to localize in Uruguay?
What the 150 top websites do
Of the top 150 website (Global by design ranking):
- 42/150 translate into Uruguayan Spanish
- 18/150 use a “neutral” Spanish variant for all LATAM
- 14/150 translate into English
If you need others information, below you can find a selection of economic/social/cultural data
Overview
Language
Official language
Spanish 90%
Actual languages
10% others (Portuguese, Italian, German, Catalan, Yiddish, and Plautdietsch)
English
High proficiency (EF) – 49 of 111 countries/regions in the world- 8/20 position in Latin America.
T-index
0.082%
T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.
Demography
Capital: Montevideo
Currency: Peso Uruguayo
Population: 3,42 m
Population density: 20/km2
Economy
GDP: 71.18 billion USD (2022)
GDP per capita: 20,795.0 USD (2022)
Exports: $10.6 billion (2021)
Statistics
Internet users: 90.1% penetration, 3.08 million
Unemployment rate: 7.8% (2022)
Urbanisation: 96% (2022)
Literacy: 99% (2019)
Conventions
Numbering system
Arabic numerals with comma as decimal separator
Date format: dd-mm-yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 00598
Language data sources: Worldatlas/Britannica//EF/Wikipedia; Demography data sources: IMF/Worldometers; Conventions data source: Wikipedia; Economy data sources: WTO/OEC/CIA/Esomar/Datareportal; Statistics data sources: Datareportal/WorldBank/UN/UNESCO/CEIC/IMF/Culturalatlas/Commisceoglobal
Facts and data
Economy
Imports
$11.8 billion (2021). Crude Petroleum ($1.06B), Cars ($369M), Packaged Medicaments ($317M), Broadcasting Equipment ($275M), and Refined Petroleum ($275M), importing mostly from China ($2.34B), Brazil ($2.1B), Argentina ($1.18B), United States ($1.12B), and Germany ($420M).
In 2021, Uruguay was the world’s biggest importer of Maté ($59.1M)
Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of age)
• 48% have an account with a financial institution
• 24% have a credit card
• 2.4% have a mobile money account
• 19% make online purchases
Ease of doing business
Moderately easy to conduct business (rated 61.5 out of 100). 11th out of 32 countries in Latin America and Caribbean, 101st worldwide out of 190 countries (2020, World Bank)
Exports
$10.6 billion (2021). Frozen Bovine Meat ($2.01B), Sulfate Chemical Woodpulp ($1.5B), Concentrated Milk ($558M), Electricity ($525M), and Bovine Meat ($404M), exporting mostly to China ($3.06B), Brazil ($1.76B), United States ($605M), Argentina ($554M), and Netherlands ($493M).
Main local online stores
Mercadolibre.com.uy, Amazon.com , Ebay.com
Economic freedom
‘Mostly free’ (70.2 out of 100) 4th amongst 32 countries in the Americas region, 27th worldwide out of 186 countries (2022, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal)
Global Innovation Index
Ranked 5th out of 18 Latin American and Caribbean countries, 64th out of 132 worldwide.
The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.
Economy data sources: WTO/OEC/CIA/Esomar/Datareportal
Service Imports (2018)
Service Exports (2018)
Source: OEC
Most Specialised Products by RCA Index
Specialisation is measured using Revealed Comparative Advantage, an index that takes the ratio between Uruguay observed and expected exports in each product
Source: OEC
Most complex products by PCI
Product Complexity Index measures the knowledge intensity of a product by considering the knowledge intensity of its exporters
Source: OEC
Export Opportunities by Relatedness
Relatedness measures the distance between a country's current exports and each product, the barchart show only products that Uruguay is not specialized in
Source: OEC
T-index
Reach most of the online purchasing power
T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales. It estimates the market share of each country in relation to global e-commerce.
Try it nowMedia
Media language
Spanish
Information channels
Uruguayans can access a wide range of views via hundreds of privately-owned media outlets. State radio and TV are operated by the official broadcasting service, SODRE. Some newspapers are owned by, or linked to, the main political parties. Freedom of speech and media are guaranteed by the constitution and are generally respected, says Freedom House. A 2014 broadcasting law has been praised for encouraging media pluralism and setting up an independent regulator, says Reporters Without Borders.
The press
El Pais – Montevideo daily
El Observador – Montevideo daily
La República – Montevideo daily
El Telégrafo – Paysandu daily
Brecha – Montevideo weekly
Búsqueda – Montevideo, business weekly
Television
Teledoce – Montevideo
Canal 10 – Montevideo
Monte Carlo TV Canal 4 – Montevideo
TV Nacional Uruguay – government-owned
TV Ciudad – cultural, Montevideo
Radio
Radio El Espectador – Montevideo
Radio Sarandi – Montevideo
Radio Carve – Montevideo
Radio Montecarlo – Montevideo
Radiodifusión Nacional SODRE – government-owned
Media data source: BBC
Internet Data
Internet users
90.1% penetration, 3.08 million.
Share of web traffic by device
55.59% mobile phones, 43.43% computers (laptops and desktops), 0.92% tablet devices, others 0.06%
Median speed of mobile Internet connection
33.12 Mbps
Median speed of fixed Internet connection
104.72 Mbps
Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 171.3%
Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 81.6%
Most popular web search engines
Google (96.57%), Bing (2.6%), Yahoo (0.42%), DuckduckGo (0.17%), Ecosia (0.09%), others (0.15%).
Most used social media
Facebook (68.7%), Twitter (10.36%), Instagram (10.01%), Pinterest (5.91%), YouTube (3.67%), reddit (0.6%), LinkedIn (0.36%), others (0.4%).
Internet data sources: Datareportal/Statcounter
Social statistics
Life expectancy
75 years (2021)
Current healthcare expenditure
9.15% of GDP (2020)
Current education expenditure
96.2% of total expenditure in public institutions.
Co2 emissions
1.9 metric tons per capita
Corruption Perceptions Index
Uruguay scored 74 out of 100, ranked 14 out of 180 countries worldwide.
The CPI measures perception of corruption due to the difficulty of measuring absolute levels of corruption.
World Happiness Index
Uruguay ranked 30 out of 146 countries, with a score of 6.474.
The World Happiness Index measures happiness based on respondent ratings of their own lives, correlated with other life factors.
Social statistics sources: WorldBank/UN/UNESCO/CEIC/IMF
The Data Factbook is a work in progress project. Our community is helping us to fill it up always with new and updated data. Your contribution is precious. If you want to help us, please write your advices at imminent@translated.com
Languages research
Languages in Uruguay
The geographical distribution of languages that you will find in the maps published in this section is a work in progress. Our community is helping us to fill it up with always new and updated data. Your contribution is precious. If you want to help us, please write to imminent.factbook@translated.com
Photo credit: Karan Chaudari, Unsplash