Fernheim Colony

The Fernheim Colony is a Plautdietsch-speaking settlement of Mennonites originally from Russia of about 5000 in the Chaco of Paraguay.

Filadelfia is the administrative center of the colony, seat of Boquerón department and is considered the 'Capital of the Chaco'.

For humanitarian reasons they were admitted into Germany, because of their German ethnicity that they had adopted during their 200- to 250-year stay in German-speaking lands, even though most of their ancestors came from Flanders and Frisia.

The Mennonite refugees from the Soviet Union settled nearby, founding Fernheim Colony.

Travel was exhausting: a steamboat was taken up the Paraguay River to Puerto Casado, from where a narrow gauge railway went 150 kilometres (93 mi) west into the Chaco bush.