Sul

The Brazilian south, settled by Europeans in the nineteenth century and visibly different from the rest of the country. Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana were contested between Portugal and Spain for two centuries - the Jesuit missions to the Guarani were here, and the region changed hands repeatedly - which is why its cattle culture, its gaucho identity and its mate drinking are shared with Uruguay and Argentina rather than with Bahia. Imperial policy from the 1820s recruited German and then Italian smallholders to settle it, deliberately creating a region of family farms rather than plantations, and Polish and Ukrainian settlement followed. German and Italian dialects are still spoken in interior towns, and Pomeranian survives here better than in Pomerania. The Farroupilha revolt of 1835 to 1845 declared a separatist republic that lasted a decade. The south has the country's highest development indicators and a recurring separatist fringe. Agriculture is soy, poultry and wine. Iguazu Falls are on its western edge. The Jesuit mission ruins are a World Heritage site. The three southern states hold around thirty million people. Curitiba's bus rapid transit system has been copied worldwide. Blumenau holds a large Oktoberfest. The region has Brazil's coldest weather and occasional snow. Porto Alegre hosted the first World Social Forum in 2001. Churrasco and the chimarrao gourd are regional markers. Itaipu dam sits on the Parana at the region’s western edge and was long the largest in the world by output. Gramado and Canela draw tourists to Germanic architecture built for that purpose.

• Existed: 1824 CE – present
• Type: Entity