Descriptive Essay on a Place

Descriptive Essay on a Place

Descriptive essay of the Río de la Plata

The Río de la Plata or, in more technical terms, the estuary of La Plata, is one of the main arteries of the Argentine territory, whose saline waters gave meaning to the founding, in the 16th century, of the city of Buenos Aires: a port of departure for Spain of the minerals precious mined in Upper Peru. This is where the name of its waters comes from and not its coloration, which tends more to the bronze.

The 290 kilometers in length of the Río de la Plata extend in a northwest-southeast direction, marking the border between Argentina and Uruguay, from the parallel of Punta Gorda to the imaginary line that connects Punta del Este (in Uruguay) with Cape San Antonio (in Argentina), prior to its mouth in the ocean Atlantic.

It is also the widest river in the world: 234 km at its maximum point, with an average depth of 13 meters that requires continuous dredging of the sedimentary deposits of the stream. Some 160 million tons of sediment are displaced per year: silt, clay and sand since, otherwise, they would impede the intense commercial life that the river gives to the many ports that have been founded on its shore: Colonia de Sacramento, Piriápolis, La Plata, Punta del Este, Puerto de Olivos, Puerto del Buceo, those of Montevideo and Buenos Aires.

It is said that the Spanish first came to this river around 1501, during the first of Americo Vespucio's trips to the continent that would bear his name; and which was initially given the biblical name Jordan. But this, if true, did not prevent more than a decade later from being known as the Sweet Sea, in the words of one of the main Spanish explorers of the region, Juan Díaz de Solís, who was trying to find an exit to the ocean Peaceful. Since then, this river was in the sights of very different powers, from the Spanish crown and the until the British invaders who tried in 1806 to seize the Viceroyalty of the Silver.

In fact, in this river there were many naval battles that took place, such as the Battle of Río de la Plata in 1939, during the Second World War: the first confrontation between English and German ships of the conflict. And, likewise, many have been the shipwrecks that have occurred in its waters, difficult to navigate and with a climate prone to storms. The sudestadas that occur in the region are famous: cold and strong winds that blow from the southeast and are accompanied by heavy rains, causing the river to grow about 4 meters in height.

A tiny set of islands exists in the heart of the estuary: sedimentary splashes that immortalize the name of Solís and belong to Argentina. Not far from there a larger patch emerges, a few square kilometers in area. A body of land split in two, like Siamese brothers in the middle of the water: the Martín García (Argentina) and Timoteo islands Domínguez (Uruguay), which actually constitute one, and in the middle of both is the only dry border between the two countries.

The coasts of the river, for their part, belong not only to these two different countries (which from a certain point of view are not so different), but to two opposing geological formations. The eastern edge, in Uruguayan territory, is part of the Brasilia Massif, and is fed by the tributaries of San Juan, Rosario, Santa Lucía and the Solís Grande stream.

The opposite side, on the other hand, is part of the sedimentary basin of the Pampa, formed by silt plateaus and muddy plains, where reed beds abound. There, two large tributary rivers meet: the Samborombón and the Salado, and both flow into the Samborombón bay, on the coast of the Province of Buenos Aires.

And although the river is common ground for tourism and for water sports such as kitesurfing, windsurfing or kayak, the Río de la Plata presents strong margins of contamination, especially in the areas close to Buenos Aires. In part, this is due to the highly polluted Reconquista River dying in its waters, and especially the river Matanza-Riachuelo: one of the most polluted in the world, which is born in the province of Buenos Aires and delimits the south of the Argentine capital.

Five centuries of history flow in the brown waters of this river, which embraces the Argentine capital as much as it brushes the feet of that of Uruguay, two nations separated almost at birth, in the 19th century, and that look at each other from opposite shores as longing for a reunification impossible.

References:

• "What is a descriptive essay?" on The thinker.
• "Essay" in Wikipedia.
• "Río de la Plata" in Wikipedia.
• "Río de la Plata" in Conicet Mendoza (Argentina).
• "Río de la Plata, a strategic point in the geography of our country" in Edu.ar.

What is a descriptive essay?

A descriptive essay it's a kind of essay text (that is, a reflection written in prose) that is characterized by addressing a specific topic (a place, a person, an event or a object) and describe it exhaustively, that is, highlight its most prominent or relevant features or characteristics for the Author. However, as in all essays, in this type of texts the subjectivity of the essayist is key to define which are the most outstanding characteristics or which is the perspective from which the theme or the chosen reference will be described.

Follow with: