Sierra del Plata

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Sierra de la Plata (a term in Spanish meaning "mountain range of silver"), was a legendary treasury of silver that was believed to be located in South America. The legend probably originated when the European survivors of a shipwreck were given abundant gifts of silver by the native peoples.

In the early 16th century, the estuary of the Uruguay and Paraná rivers was named by the Spaniards Río de la Plata ("river of silver", sometimes referred to in English as the "River Plate") because it was at first believed to be a river that led to the Sierra del Plata. There is no evidence that any such mountain range of silver ever existed, and actually the region around the Río de la Plata is not rich in silver mines; to find them, one ought to travel to the far Andes, more than a thousand miles away. The closest mountain range that resembles the myth of the "mountain range of silver" is the silver mine of Potosí in modern Bolivia, a town known for its rich silver resources found on the town's mountain range.

The modern country of Argentina takes its name from the Latin word for silver, argentum.