South Region, Brazil
The South Region of Brazil is one of the five regions of Brazil. It includes the states of Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, and Santa Catarina, and covers, being the smallest region of the country, occupying only about 6.76% of the territory of Brazil. Its whole area is smaller than that of the state of Minas Gerais, in Southeast Brazil, for example or the whole metropolitan France.
It is a tourist, economic and cultural pole. It borders Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay, as well as the Centre-West and Southeast regions, and the Atlantic Ocean. The region is considered the safest in Brazil to visit, having a lower crime rate than other regions in the country.
History
Pre-Columbian history
By the time the first European explorers arrived, all parts of the territory were inhabited by semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer native tribes. They subsisted on a combination of hunting, fishing, and gathering.Portuguese colonization
European colonization in Southern Brazil started with the arrival of Portuguese and Spanish Jesuit missionaries. They lived among the Natives and converted them to Catholicism. Colonists from São Paulo arrived in the same period. For decades, the Portuguese and Spanish crowns disputed over this region.Due to this conflict, the King of Portugal encouraged the immigration of settlers from the Azores Islands to Southern Brazil, in an attempt to build up a Portuguese population. Between 1748 and 1756, six thousand Azoreans arrived. They composed over half of the population of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina by the late 18th century.
German settlement
The first German immigrants came to Brazil soon after it gained independence in 1822 from Portugal. They were recruited to work as small farmers because there were many land holdings without sufficient workers. To attract the immigrants, the Brazilian government had promised them large tracts where they could settle with their families and colonize the region. The first immigrants arrived in 1824, settling in the city of São Leopoldo. Over the next four decades, another 27,256 Germans were brought to Rio Grande do Sul to work as smallholders in the country. By 1904, it is estimated that 50,000 Germans had settled in this state.In Santa Catarina, most German immigrants were not brought by the Brazilian government but by private groups that promoted the immigration of Europeans to the Americas, such as the Hamburg Colonization Society. These groups created rural communities or colonies for immigrants, many of which developed into large cities, such as Blumenau and Joinville, the largest city in Santa Catarina.
Considerable numbers of immigrants from Germany arrived at Paraná during the civil war, most of them coming from Santa Catarina; others were Volga Germans from Russia.
Ragamuffin War
The Ragamuffin War was a Republican uprising that began in Southern Brazil in 1835. The rebels, led by generals Bento Gonçalves da Silva and Antônio de Souza Netto with the support of the Italian warrior Giuseppe Garibaldi, surrendered to imperial forces in 1845. This conflict occurred because in Rio Grande do Sul, the state's main product, the charque, suffered stiff competition from charque from Uruguay and Argentina. The imports had free access to the Brazilian market while gaúchos had to pay high taxes to sell their product inside Brazil. The Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the rebels in 1839. With his help the revolution spread through Santa Catarina, in the northern border of Rio Grande do Sul. After many conflicts, in 1845 peace negotiations ended the war.Italian settlement
started arriving in Brazil in 1875. They were mostly peasants from the Veneto in Northern Italy attracted to Southern Brazil for economic opportunities and the chance to acquire their own lands. Most of the immigrants worked as small farmers, mainly cultivating grapes in the Serra Gaúcha. Italian immigration to the region lasted until 1914, with a total of 100,000 Italians settling in Rio Grande do Sul in this period, and many others in Santa Catarina and Paraná.In 1898, there were a total of 300,000 people of Italian origin in Rio Grande do Sul; 50,000 in Santa Catarina; and 30,000 in Paraná. Today their Southern Brazilian descendants number 9.7 million and comprise 35.9% of Southern Brazil's population.
Demographics
As noted, the region received numerous European immigrants during the 19th century, who have had a large influence on its demography and culture. The main ethnic origins of Southern Brazil are Portuguese, Italian, German, Austrian, Luxembourger, Polish, Ukrainian, Spanish, Dutch and Russian. Smaller numbers that follow are French, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, African, Swiss, Croat, Lebanese, Lithuanian and Latvian, Japanese, Finnish and Estonian, Belarusian, Slovene, Ashkenazi Jew, Caboclo, British, Czech, Slovak, Belgian and Hungarian| City | State | Population |
| Curitiba |  ParanáRacial compositionGeographyClimateSouthern Brazil has subtropical or temperate climate, with its area composed mostly of Cfa and Cfb Köppen climates. The annual average temperatures vary between 12 °C and 22 °C. It snows in the mountain ranges.CharacteristicsThe region is highly urbanized and many cities are famous for their urban planning, like Curitiba and Maringá, both in Paraná State. It has a relatively high standard of living, with the highest Human Development Index of Brazil, 0.859, and the second highest per capita income of the country, $13,396, behind only the Southeast Region. The region also has a 98.3% literacy rate.LanguagesPortuguese, the official language of Brazil, is spoken by the entire population. In the south countryside, dialects of German or Italian origins are also spoken. The predominant dialects are Hunsrückisch and Venetian. In Rio Grande do Sul and Curitiba there are some Yiddish speakers. In the northern region of Paraná there are some Japanese speakers. In the region around Ponta Grossa there are also some Dutch speakers. There are Polish language and Ukrainian language speakers in Paraná as well. Indigenous languages still spoken in some villages include Guarani and Kaingang.EconomyAgricultureThe main agricultural products grown are:
In 2017, the southern region gathered around 12% of Brazil's cattle. In sheep farming, in 2017, the South Region was the second largest in the country, with 4.2 million head. Sheep shearing activity continued to be predominant in the South, which is responsible for 99% of wool production in the country. Rio Grande do Sul continued to be the state with the highest national participation, representing 94.1% of the total. The municipalities of Santana do Livramento, Alegrete and Quaraí led the activity. Currently, meat production has become the main objective of sheep farming in the State, due to the increase in prices paid to the producer that made the activity more attractive and profitable. Intensive livestock farming is also highly developed in the South, which ranks first in the ranking of Brazilian milk production. Some of the milk produced in the South benefits from the dairy industries. The South has 35.7% of the Brazilian milk production, competing with the Southeast, which has 34.2%. The southeast has the largest herd of cows milked: 30.4% of the total of 17.1 million existing in Brazil. The highest productivity, however, is that of the Southern Region, with an average of 3,284 liters per cow per year, which is why it has led the ranking of milk production since 2015. The municipality of Castro, in Paraná, was the largest producer in 2017, with 264 million liters of milk. Paraná is already the second largest national producer with 4.7 billion liters, only surpassed by Minas Gerais. In pork, the 3 southern states are the largest producers in the country. Santa Catarina is the largest producer in Brazil. The State is responsible for 28.38% of the country's slaughter and 40.28% of Brazilian pork exports. Paraná, for its part, has a breeding stock of 667 thousand inhabited dwellings, with a herd representing 17.85% of the Brazilian total. Paraná occupies the second position in the country's productive ranking, with 21.01%, and the third place among exporting states, with 14.22%. In third place in Brazil is Rio Grande do Sul, with almost 15% participation. Poultry farming is strong in the South. In 2018, the South region, with an emphasis on the creation of chickens for slaughter, was responsible for almost half of the Brazilian total. Paraná only represented 26.2%. Paraná occupies the Brazilian leadership in the ranking of chicken producing and exporting states. Rio Grande do Sul ranks third in national production, with 11%. In egg production, the South Region is the 2nd largest in Brazil, with 24.1% of the country's production. Paraná ranks 2nd in the Brazilian ranking, with 9.6% of the national participation. In fish farming, western Paraná, in municipalities close to Toledo and Cascavel, has become the largest fishing region in the country, with tilapia as the main cultivated species. The west represents 69% of all the production of Paraná, the largest national producer, with 112 thousand tons. Of this amount, 91% refers to tilapia farming. The South region was the main producer of honey in the country in 2017, representing 39.7% of the national total. Rio Grande do Sul was the first with 15.2%, Paraná in second place with 14.3%, Santa Catarina in fifth place with 10.2%. |