It borders Ciudad Vieja to the west, the central business district to the north, Palermo to the east and the coastline to the south.

[1] In the first half of the 20th century, the neighbourhood became a melting pot of different cultures, due to the immigrants who settled in the area.

The neighborhood emerged in the first half of the 19th century, when the city walls were demolished, and a part of the population –mainly Afro-Uruguayans, who had been freed after the abolition of slavery in 1842– began to settle in the southern area of the city, living in tenements called conventillos, such as the Mediomundo.

[3] Due to this, the neighborhood became a melting pot of Afro-Uruguayan, Spanish, Italian, and Jewish cultures.

[7] In 2022, the mayor of Montevideo, Carolina Cosse, proposed renaming a street in Barrio Sur to honor the LGBT rights activist and travesti, Gloria Meneses.