| Group: | Polish Uruguayans |
| Population: | 497-5,000 Poles reside in Uruguay; 50,000–70,000 Uruguayans with Polish ancestry (%4) of Uruguay's popoulation |
| Popplace: | Montevideo |
| Langs: | Spanish, with minority speaking Polish |
| Rels: | Roman Catholicism and Judaism |
| Related: | Polish Argentine, Polish Brazilians, Polish Chileans, White Latin Americans |
A Polish Uruguayan is a Uruguayan citizen of full or partial Polish ancestry.
The Polish arrived in Uruguay at the end of the 19th century. The most recent figure is from the 2011 Uruguayan census, which revealed 497 people who declared Poland as their country of birth.[1] Other sources claim around 5,000 Poles in Uruguay. Similar to neighboring country Argentina, often, Poles came when the Germans and the Russians ruled Poland and so were known as "Germans" or "Russians".
Most Polish Uruguayans belong to the Roman Catholic Church; they have their own chapel in the Atahualpa neighbourhood. There is also a significant Polish Jewish minority.[2]
Polish Uruguayans have two important institutions: the Polish Society Marshal Joseph Pilsudsky (Spanish; Castilian: Sociedad Polonesa Mariscal José Pilsudski), established in 1915, and the Uruguayan Polish Union (Spanish; Castilian: Unión Polono Uruguaya), established in 1935,[3] both associated with USOPAL.[4]