About Rio Grande do Sul Brazil

About: Rio Grande do Sul is one of 27 units of Brazil. Located in the Southern Region, has limits as the state of Santa Catarina to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, south to Uruguay and Argentina to the west, its capital is the city of Porto Alegre.

It is the southernmost state in the country, has the fourth highest GDP [3] – exceeded only by São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais – the fifth most populous [4] and the fifth human development index (HDI) higher [2].

The state has a remarkable role in Brazil’s history, having been the scene of the Ragamuffin War, the longest civil war in the country. Its population is largely made up of descendants of Indians, Portuguese, Azorean, Spaniards, Africans, Germans, Italians, Frenchmen and Poles, among other immigrants [5].

In certain regions of the state, as the Serra Gaucha region and the rural southern half, you can still hear dialects of Italian (talian) and German (Hunsrückisch, Plattdeutsch) [5].

This Brazilian state originally had its economy based on cattle ranching that settled in southern Brazil during the seventeenth century with the Jesuit missions in America, and later expanded to commercial and industrial sectors, especially in the northern half of the state.