🐄 Cows

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Welcome to Latinometrics. We bring you Latin American insights and trends through concise, thought-provoking data visualizations.

By now, longtime Latinometrics readers are certainly trivia whizzes when it comes to the region we all love—if for no other reason than the fun weekly questions included in each new Domingo Brief.

Biggest country of Latin America? Brazil. Messiest economy? Argentina. Heaviest industry? Mexico. Most cows per capita in the world?

Gotcha.

Today let’s talk about one of our favorite Latin American countries, Uruguay. The small South American country has managed to become the region’s big success story, despite its small size. And having 3M inhabitants is one thing—having about 10M cows at the same time is surprising.

Cattle have long formed a critical piece of Uruguay’s society and culture, having been introduced by the Spanish Governor of Buenos Aires, Hernando Arias de Saavedra, in 1603. As of the most recent figures available, cow-derivative products (such as beef, cheese, or milk) made up just shy of a third of Uruguay’s total $11B exports.

Uruguayan beef in particular is world-renowned, and its production dates back to the days of the famed skilled horsemen and local cowboys – named gauchos – who wrangled livestock across much of southern South America.

Gauchos formed also part of nearby Argentina (roughly 45-50M cows), as well as Paraguay (about 15M cows), southern Bolivia and the Chilean Patagonia, and the southernmost state of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul. In fact, people from Rio Grande do Sul are today known to their compatriots as gauchos, demonstrating the cowboys’ celebration in contemporary River Plate basin.

Zoom out and see, though, that for most of the rest of Latin America (and the world) the people-to-cow ratio remains far more…reasonable? Clearly, it’s not hard to guess the region’s agricultural heartland.

Moo on, Uruguay.

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