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Comment by djKianoosh | Hacker News Reader

Not to bring too many facts into the discussion, but Uruguay and Argentina dont have similar racial composition:

http://www.indexmundi.com/uruguay/demographics_profile.html http://www.indexmundi.com/argentina/demographics_profile.htm...

Uruguay have 12% non-white, Argentina only 3%

That's not what I would call "similar".

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Sorry, I should have been clearer: they are predominantly white. When I was last in each country, I didn't get any real sense of deep hatred of each other. Though there was some seemingly good natured ribbing about who was better at e.g. asado.

right on.. i grew up in Argentina. and yes there's a rivalry, predominantly friendly, among things like asado, futbol, mate, etc. :) and yes, between arg/uru/bra people are very friendly with each other as long as it doesn't involve futbol ;-)

It's so friendly that Uruguayans and Argentines don't identify the other as foreign. Uruguayans didn't want to be their own country when their started their independence war, it was an attempt to not be part of Spain or Brazil and to be joined with what would become Argentina. It was the British who decided Uruguay would be an independent country. Since then in the last 200 years, they've developed somewhat distinct institutions and cultures. It's similar to the relationship between the US and Canada.

You can also use this link if you want to see how the countries compare side by side: http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/argentina.uruguay...

I think it's a matter of definitions. Demographically the countries are actually more similar, there is just differences in how people identify. The biggest difference between the two countries and cultures is Uruguayans are secular both in personal culture and with regard to the state. Where as Argentines are Catholic. There's also a big difference in political culture, structures of political parties and faith in institutions. Uruguay has much less corruption.

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