During the first half of the 19th century, Uruguay was the main destination for French immigrants in South America and received about 20,000 French immigrants, second only to the United States in the New World, the latter country receiving 195,971 French immigrants between 1820 and 1855. 80% of these immigrants came from the Basque Country, Béarn and Bigorre and mainly settled in Uruguay prior to the Great Siege of Montevideo: at least 13,922 and as much as 17,536 of them arrived between 1833 and 1842, representing from 36.5% to 41.5% of all immigrants these years. French immigrants, and notably Basques, had a great demographic impact on the population of the country at that time, since Uruguay only had 74,000 inhabitants in 1830 and 200,000 in 1842. According to various estimates, there were between 14,000, 18,000 or 25,000 Frenchmen living in the country in the early 1840s, representing a significant part of the total population (7 to 12.5%), especially in the capital where they made up a third of the inhabitants.