Colonia del Sacramento

Portuguese settlers led by Manuel Lobo, governor of Rio de Janeiro, established Colonia in 1680 as a strategic outpost facing Spanish Buenos Aires. Spain captured it within months, and over the following century the town was taken, besieged and returned repeatedly; the departmental tourism office notes it was the subject of six treaties between the two crowns. Under the Portuguese governor Vasconcellos from 1722 it became the richest and best-defended town in the region, and much of its present layout dates from the Portuguese town of the early eighteenth century.

The Treaty of San Ildefonso made Colonia Spanish in 1777, and most of the fortification wall was removed that year. After further Portuguese and Brazilian rule the town became part of independent Uruguay in 1828. The city later grew north and east on a regular grid, leaving the old quarter's irregular plan intact; its streets, squares and buildings were declared National Historic Monuments in 1971, and UNESCO inscribed the historic quarter in 1995.

Colonia is the capital of its department and a busy ferry port, so day visitors from Buenos Aires mix with local residents in the old quarter. The UNESCO commission notes a lively dining scene and many small posadas in old colonial houses, and the tourism office points to local cheeses and wines from the surrounding department as typical products. UNESCO itself warns that tourism-driven changes in shops and ownership put pressure on the quarter's character, so choosing locally run places helps.