Estado do Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul (English: /ˌr_ˌɡrændi_d_ˈsʊl/, English: /-_ˌɡrndi_d_ˈsl/, Portuguese: [ˈʁi.u ˈɡɾɐ̃dʒ(i) du ˈsuw]; "Great River of the South") is a state in the southern region of Brazil. It is the fifth-most-populous state and the ninth largest by area. Located in the southernmost part of the country, Rio Grande do Sul is bordered clockwise by Santa Catarina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Uruguayan departments of Rocha, Treinta y Tres, Cerro Largo, Rivera and Artigas to the south and southwest, and the Argentine provinces of Corrientes and Misiones to the west and northwest. The capital and largest city is Porto Alegre. The state has the highest life expectancy in Brazil, and the crime rate is relatively low compared to the Brazilian national average. Despite the high standard of living, unemployment is still high in the state, as of 2017. The state has 5.4% of the Brazilian population and it is responsible for 6.6% of the Brazilian GDP.

The state shares a gaucho culture with its neighbors Argentina and Uruguay. Before the arrival of Portuguese and Spanish settlers, it was inhabited mostly by the Guarani and Kaingang peoples (with smaller populations of Charrúa and Minuane). The first Europeans there were Jesuits, followed by settlers from the Azores. In the 19th century it was the scene of conflicts including the Ragamuffin War and the Paraguayan War. Large waves of German and Italian migration have shaped the state as well.

Geography

Rio Grande do Sul is bordered to the northeast by the Brazilian State of Santa Catarina, to the southeast by the Atlantic Ocean, on the southwest by Uruguay, and to the northwest by the Argentine provinces of Corrientes and Misiones.

The northern part of the state lies on the southern slopes of the elevated plateau extending southward from São Paulo across the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, and is much broken by low mountain ranges whose general direction across the trend of the slope gives them the appearance of escarpments. A range of low mountains extends southward from the Serra do Mar of Santa Catarina and crosses the state into Uruguay. West of this range is a vast grassy plain devoted principally to stock-raising – the northern and most elevated part being suitable in pasturage and climate for sheep, and the southern for cattle. East of it is a wide coastal zone only slightly elevated above the sea; within it are two great estuarine lagoons, the Lagoa dos Patos and Lagoa Mirim, which are separated from the ocean by two sandy, partially barren peninsulas. The coast is one great sand beach, broken only by the outlet of the two lakes, called the Rio Grande, which affords an entrance to navigable inland waters and several ports. There are two distinct river systems in Rio Grande do Sul – that of the eastern slope draining to the lagoons, and that of the Río de la Plata basin draining westward to the Uruguay River.

The larger rivers of the eastern group are the Jacuí, Sinos, Caí, Gravataí and Camaquã, which flow into the Lagoa dos Patos, and the Jaguarão which flows into the Lagoa Mirim. All of the first named, except the Camaquã, discharge into one of the two arms or estuaries opening into the northern end of Lagoa dos Patos, which is called the Guaíba River, though technically it is not a river but a lake. The Guaíba River is broad, comparatively deep and about long, and with the rivers discharging into it affords upwards of of fluvial navigation. The Jacuí is one of the most important rivers of the state, rising in the ranges of the Coxilha Grande of the north and flowing south and southeast to the Guaíba estuary, with a course of nearly It has two large tributaries, the Vacacaí from the south and the Taquari from the north, and many small streams. The Jaguarão, which forms part of the boundary line with Uruguay, is navigable 42 km up to and beyond the town of Jaguarão.

In addition to the Lagoa dos Patos and Lagoa Mirim there are a number of small lakes on the sandy, swampy peninsulas that lie between the coast and these two, and there are others of a similar character along the northern coast. The largest lake is the Lagoa dos Patos (Lake of the Patos – an Indian tribe inhabiting its shores at the time of European discovery), which lies parallel with the coastline, northeast and southwest, and is about long exclusive of the two arms at its northern end, 40 58 km long respectively, and of its outlet, the Rio Grande, about 39 km long. Its width varies from 35 to 58 km. The lake is comparatively shallow and filled with sand banks, making its navigable channels tortuous and difficult. The Lagoa Mirim occupies a similar position farther south, on the Uruguayan border, and is about long by 10 to 35 km wide. It is more irregular in outline and discharges into Lagoa dos Patos through a navigable channel known as the São Gonçalo Channel. A part of the lake lies in Uruguayan territory, but its navigation, as determined by treaty, belongs exclusively to Brazil. Both of these lakes are evidently the remains of an ancient depression in the coastline shut in by sand beaches built up by the combined action of wind and current. They are of the same level as the ocean, but their waters are affected by the tides and are brackish only a short distance above the Rio Grande outlet.

Fully one-third of the state belongs to the Río de la Plata drainage basin. Of the many streams flowing northward and westward to the Uruguay, the largest are the Ijuí of the plateau region, the Ibicuí, which has its source near Santa Maria in the central part of the state and flows westward to the Uruguay a short distance above Uruguaiana, and the Quaraí River which forms part of the boundary line with Uruguay. The Uruguay River itself is formed by the confluence of the Canoas and Pelotas rivers. The Pelotas, which has its source in the Serra do Mar on the Atlantic coast, and the Uruguay River forms the northern and western boundary line of the state down to the mouth of the Quaraí, on the Uruguayan frontier.

Ecoregions

Several ecoregions cover portions of the state. In the northeastern corner of the state, between the Serra do Mar/Serra Geral and the Atlantic, lies the southern extension of the Serra do Mar coastal forests, a belt of evergreen tropical moist forests that extend north along the coastal strip as far as Rio de Janeiro state. The high plateau behind the Serra do Mar is occupied by the Araucaria moist forests, a subtropical forests characterized by evergreen, laurel-leaved forests interspersed with emergent Brazilian Pines (Araucaria angustifolia). The Alto Paraná Atlantic forests lie on the lower slopes of the plateau south and east of the Araucaria forests, including much of the lower basin of the Jacuí and its tributaries. These forests are semi-deciduous, with many trees losing their leaves in the winter dry season. The Atlantic Coast restingas, distinctive forests which grow on nutrient-poor coastal dunes, extend along the coast, as far as the Uruguayan border.

The southeastern portion of the state is covered by the Pampas, which extends south into Uruguay, in a plateau named Serras de Sudeste (Southeastern Mountain Ranges).

History

During the Brazilian Colonial period, the province of South Rio Grande was the scene of small wars and border skirmishes between Portugal and Spain for the region, the Sacramento Colony, and the Guarani Missions. It was also a focal point for internal rebellions in the 19th and the early 20th centuries.

Guarani Wars

According to the treaty of Tordesillas, the region was to be part of the Spanish possessions in South America. However, the Spanish were much more interested in the Pacific Coast, where gold, silver, and gems were quickly found. Even in the Atlantic coast, their attention was on the River Plate where they built the seaport of Buenos Aires, on its right bank. Consequently, Spanish settlement followed the course of the River Plate and its tributaries, especially the Paraná and Uruguay rivers, largely ignoring the Rio Grande do Sul area. The Spanish introduced livestock which escaped into the plains and attracted gauchos to the area.

The first Spanish to settle in the region that is now Paraguay, northwestern Argentina (Corrientes, Misiones), and Rio Grande do Sul were Jesuit missionary priests who came with the idea of converting the indigenous population to Catholic Christianity. To that end, they founded missionary villages known in Spanish as misiones or reducciones, populated by Guarani Indians.

In the early 17th century, the Jesuits founded missions to the east of the Uruguay river, and in the northwest of modern Rio Grande do Sul.

The missions were destroyed and their Guarani inhabitants were enslaved in large raids by bandeirantes between 1636 and 1638; however, in 1687, the Jesuits were back in the region, having refounded seven reductions, the Misiones Orientales. The region remained under Spanish sovereignty, though in practice the Jesuits operated quite independently as consequence of the spanish laws, up to the late 17th century. But in 1680, the Portuguese founded Colônia do Sacramento on the northern bank of the River Plate, in what is now Uruguay. War ensued and was intermittent until the independence of Uruguay in 1828.

The logistics of defending Colônia against the Spanish resulted in a government effort to settle Rio Grande do Sul's coastal region with Brazilian and Portuguese colonists. In 1737, a fortified village (today the city of Rio Grande) was built at the entrance of Lagoa dos Patos. In 1752, a group of Azorean settlers founded Porto Alegre; to the west, Rio Pardo was also founded. Towards the middle of the century, Brazilians and Portuguese arrived to the west of the region, clashing with the Jesuits and the Guaranis. Up to 1756, the Guaranis fought back, under the leadership of Sepé Tiaraju, who was popularly canonized as São Sepé (Saint Sepé). However, the …

Text taken from Wikipedia - Rio Grande do Sul under the CC-BY-SA-3.0 on April 13, 2023

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