The River Plate - Argentina/Uruguay

Factual Questions
1

I’ve got, actually, two questions about the Rio de la Plata, usually translated into English as the River Plate. On the Atlantic coast at the border of Argentina and Uruguay, Buenos Aires sits on its southern shore (map).

1. Why is it called a “river”? The thing is easily 50 miles wide near its “mouth”, and only looks to be perhaps 100 miles long. Upon very casual inspection, I’d be more inclined to think it was a bay of some kind.

The only thing I can think of is that it’s actually fresh water - is it? The Uruguay River (pretty wide itself, it seems) flows towards the Atlantic, suddenly gets much wider, and is rewarded with a brand new name…why?

2. How is the English translation conventionally pronounced? I would have guessed simply “plate”, like the object you eat off of. However, I recently watched a documentary on the demise of the Graf Spee in 1939 in which the narrator pronouced it like “platt”.

WTF? Granted, I think “platt” sounds better, but it also sounds like an ill-informed attempt at local flavor. Can anybody shed light?

2

It is prounounced “platt”.

Take a look at the Mississippi’s delta sometime. Much wider than 50 miles.

3

I think that the River Plate is best described as an estuary…im not a geographer though.

I always thought that was a curious translation- maybe someone thought plata meant plate - and not silver.

Argentina is also named after silver (Argentum).

4

The Río de la Plata is indeed an estuary. The northwestern end, at least, contains freshwater.

5

And as MEBruckner’s link indicates, Rio de la Plata is usually assumed to start off where the Paraná and Uruguay rivers join (not conspicuous in the OP-linked map: but you can see parts of the Paraná delta just NW of Buenos Aires)

6

Thanks a lot, everybody! Now it’s starting to make some sense (sort of):[ul][]The Rio de la Plata is not a river at all, but rather an estuary. Based on MEBuckner’s link, it’s by definition a mixing zone of fresh and salt water.[]The name is, I guess, one that was given by the locals and stuck, even after it was decided that it’s not really a river.[]The English “translation” of “River Plate” is a shining example of a false cognate. (I hadn’t realized that until jaimest pointed it out)[]The English pronunciation is the result of some horribly tortured use of the usual conventions. But, it remains because it sounds OK, and the translation is horrid anyway so nobody really cares. :)[/ul]Or something like that…

7

One cannot fault those old Spanish explorers too much – what would you call a narrow, flowing body of water dumping fresh water into the ocean? I’d be inclined to think it was a river, myself. (And they were well aware of estuaries; most Spanish Atlantic ports were on the estuaries of the Guadalquivir and Guadiana.)

Anyway, they weren’t as far off as the Portuguese, who called this narrow inlet the River of January (that being when they found it) and discovered it was not a river mouth, estuarine or not, at all.