It includes the states of Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, and Santa Catarina, and covers 576,409.6 square kilometres (222,553.0 sq mi), being the smallest region of the country, occupying only about 6.76% of the territory of Brazil.

[2] By the time the first European explorers arrived, all parts of the territory were inhabited by semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer native tribes.

European colonization in Southern Brazil started with the arrival of Portuguese and Spanish Jesuit missionaries.

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.

To attract the immigrants, the Brazilian government had promised them large tracts where they could settle with their families and colonize the region.

Considerable numbers[clarification needed] of immigrants from Germany arrived at Paraná during the civil war, most of them coming from Santa Catarina; others were Volga Germans from Russia.

[6] The Ragamuffin War was a Republican uprising that began in Southern Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina) 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.

The imports had free access to the Brazilian market while gaúchos had to pay high taxes to sell their product inside Brazil.

They were mostly peasants from the Veneto in Northern Italy (but also from Trentino and Lombardia) attracted to Southern Brazil for economic opportunities and the chance to acquire their own lands.

[8][9] 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[10][11][12][13][14][15] Southern Brazil has subtropical or temperate climate.

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.

Paraná, for its part, has a breeding stock of 667 thousand inhabited dwellings, with a herd representing 17.85% of the Brazilian total.

In 2018, the South region, with an emphasis on the creation of chickens for slaughter, was responsible for almost half of the Brazilian total (46.9%).

[23] Santa Catarina is the largest producer of coal in Brazil, mainly in the city of Criciúma and its surroundings.

Countries supplying mineral coal to Brazil include South Africa, the United States and Australia.

The oil crisis in the 1970s led the Brazilian government to create the Energy Mobilization Plan, with intense research to discover new coal reserves.

The Geological Survey of Brazil, through works carried out in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, greatly increased previously known coal reserves between 1970 and 1986 (mainly between 1978 and 1983).

Then good quality coal, suitable for use in metallurgy and in large volumes (seven billion tons), was discovered in several deposits in Rio Grande do Sul (Morungava, Chico Lomã, Santa Teresinha), but at relatively great depths (up to 1,200 m), which has prevented its use until now.

This stone was very rare and expensive throughout the world, until the discovery of large deposits in Brazil, which caused a considerable drop in its value.

Brazil's participation in the world trade of textiles and clothing is only 0.3%, due to the difficulty of competing in price with producers in India and mainly in China.

It held the national leadership in the manufacture of pillows and is the largest producer in Latin America and the second in the world in woven labels.

Consul is originally from Santa Catarina, merged with Brastemp and today is part of the multinational Whirlpool Corporation.

[42] In the metallurgical sector, the South has one of the most famous companies in the country, Tramontina, which employs more than 8,500 employees and has 10 production units.

Other famous companies in the South are Marcopolo, a bus body manufacturer, which had a market value of R $2.782 billion in 2015, and Randon, a group of 9 companies specialized in transport solutions, which groups together vehicle manufacturers, auto parts, and road equipment – employs around 11 thousand people and recorded gross sales in 2017 of R $4.2 billion.

In metallurgy, the state has the largest national manufacturer of sinks, vats and stainless steel tanks, trophies and medals, fasteners (screws, nuts, etc.

[43][44][45][46] Rio Grande do Sul has a great potential for palaeontological tourism, with many paleontological sites and museums in Paleorrota.

Here lived Rhynchosaur, thecodonts, exaeretodons, Staurikosaurus, Guaibasaurus, Saturnalia tupiniquim, Sacisaurus, Unaysaurus, and many others.