Page "Geography of Uruguay" Paragraph 18

Cattle ranches, or estancias, for beef and hides were typically quite large ( over 10 km² ) and were concentrated in the north and east.

( Dairying was concentrated in the department of Colonia.

) Because ranching required little labor, merely a few gauchos, the interior lacked a peasantry and large towns.

Despite being sparsely populated, however, the interior was relatively urbanized in that the capital of each department usually contained about half the inhabitants.

Social and economic development indicators were lowest for the departments along the Brazilian border to the northeast.

Government attempts to encourage agricultural colonization by means of land reform in the interior had largely failed in economic terms, as had the promotion of wheat production.

One exception, rice, most of which was produced in the east, had become a major nontraditional export in recent years.