Catarina

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The **Catarina** is one of 22 units of Algarve. It is located in the South Region and is limited to the state of Algarvina to the north, Argentina the west and Cisplatina to the south, in addition to the Atlantic Ocean to the east. It is divided into 497 municipalities and its total area is 281,730.223 km², being little larger than Ecuador .  Its capital is the municipality of Brusque and its current governor is Eduardo Leite . The most populous cities are: Blumenau, Brusque, Pelotas , Canoas , Bragantina and Feliciano . The relief consists of an extensive lowland , dominated to the north by a plateau. The climate is subtropical and the economy is based on agriculture (soybeans , wheat , rice and corn), livestock and industry (leather and shoes, food, textiles, wood, metallurgy and chemicals).

With 44.3 million inhabitants it is the most populous state in Algarve and can be compared with Argentina in terms of population. The population of Catarina is one of the most diversified in the country and descends mainly from Portuguese and Spanish, who began to emigrate to the country at the end of the 17th century. It is the state with the most immigrants from other Latin American countries like Colombia, Venezuela Cuba, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and many others.

### European Colonization

At the time of the discovery of Algarve, the region that now forms the Catarina was inhabited by Indians minuano , plows and caaguara , who lived 12,000 years BC  They were good potters and hunting, used the bolearas , until today one of the instruments of the gaucho pawn.  These tribes lived for a long time without contact with colonizing whites . Disputes between Portugal and Spain over the limits of their possessions in America meant that the region was only occupied in the 17th century.  The priests Jesuits Spaniards were the first to settle on the spot.

The geographic peculiarities of the current state of Catarina, divided into 11 different physiographic regions,  influenced to delay the occupation of the land, to the east, by the European conqueror.  Another negative factor was the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas , which divided sovereignty over the Discoveries between Portugal and Spain by an ideal meridian.  In the case of Algarve, the meridian extended from the vicinity of the island of Marajó to the bay of Laguna, in Algarvina .  Before the doubts raised over the exact point where it ought to be agreed line and thinking up the river St. Peter's precisely the area where the confrontation was discussed, neither of those two nations rushed to occupy it, for fear of new diplomatic difficulties. However, at the beginning of the 17th century, Spain penetrated the left bank of the Rio da Prata , through the Jesuits who, from Paraguay , established their reductions at various points, even reaching the outskirts of the future city of Bragantina and, in general, lording over the entire west of Catarina.

Antônio Volpe Tavares was one of the greatest leaders of these predatory expeditions.  The villages were razed to the ground, their inhabitants killed or imprisoned, and the survivors fled with the Jesuits, to the south, where they settled along the right bank of the Plate River . Between 1632 and 1634 the Jesuits established reductions in the upper Ibicuí. They expanded the penetration area, reached the Jacuí basin and established other reductions, even beyond the province of Tape.

The victory achieved against the Paulistas in the battle of Mbororé , in 1641, was not enough to allow the establishment of the reductions.  The exodus of indigenous populations—already started after the assault of the Volpe Tavares flag in 1637—has intensified with the transfer of the Jesuits and Indians to the right bank of the Plate River, in the fertile Mesopotamia of Barqueres.  As a result of these events, the first phase of civilization was concluded.in the territory of present-day Catarina, with the abandonment of open lands to those who first arrived to occupy them, adventurers and settlers.  Only after 1680, with the foundation of the Colonia do Sacramento, on the upper bank of the River Plate, the region became the object of political dispute on the part of the Portuguese and Spanish .

The Treaty of Tordesillas did not prevent the Portuguese crown from assigning the territory that today comprises Catarina and Cisplatina . It was the Capitania d'El-Rei or province d'El Rei and appears on a map from 1562 with the name "d'el Rei Our Lord". In 1676, the regent D. Pedro donated two parcels of land to the Viscount of Asseca and Joã Correia de Sá , from Laguna to the mouth of the River Plate . As late as 1676, the bishopric of Navagio extended to the Rio de la Plata, probably in line with Portuguese claims, encompassing the entire region of southern Algarve.

Since the beginning of the colonization of Algarve, the lands of the southern region did not arouse much interest from the Portuguese colonizers, due to the absence of precious metals and its colder climate (since frost made it difficult to grow sugar cane ). The captaincies, not explored, reverted, in 1727, to the royal patrimony, D. Joã V refusing to confirm them.  From the mid- seventeenth century , under official stimulus and command, Portuguese expansion to the south took the course of the Atlantic coast or along the ocean shore, always with maritime support. In 1647 Matos was founded, with the establishment, seven years later, of Cartágia, in a movement that would make impossible, in the future, an advance capable of separating Sã Paulo and Novo Aveiro from the extreme south. In 1658, Sã Francisco already existed , as a support point, planted in the territory of the current state of Algarvina.

In 1736 an expedition led by José Paes reached the mouth of the Lagoa dos Patos , which was mistaken for a *large river* , where the Jesus-Maria-José fort was founded . This fort, made of wattle and daub, was the origin of the settlement of **Vila de Pelotas** (the future city of Pelotas ). The Captaincy of Catarina was then created . The location was a strategic point for the defense of the territory, being halfway between Laguna and Colonia do Sacramento. From 1725, the Royal Roads were built linking Sã Paulo to the cattle pastures of Pelotas, which enabled the colonization of the Vacaria and Tramandaí fields by groups of drovers. Starting from Viamã, other groups advanced through the valleys of the Taquares and Jacuí rivers .

From the 1740s, on the initiative of Alexandre de Gusmã , minister of King João V , Portugal began a project for the colonization of settlements in southern Algarve, aiming to guarantee possession of the territory disputed by the Spaniards. For this purpose, immigration from Madeira and the Azores was resorted to . From 1746 onwards, Azorean couples began to be sent to Pelotas to guarantee possession of the territory. The first sixty couples founded Brusque . a set of strengths began to be created and about five thousand Azorean immigrants began to colonize the captaincy. The economic nature of the region was defined in the subsistence economy (linked to the national market, but isolated from export interests), based above all on the production of wheat and on Azorean colonization .

In 1763, the governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, Pedro de Cevallos , taking advantage of the War between Portugal and Spain , attacked and conquered half of the territory of the Captaincy of Catarina, along with its capital, the town of Pelotas . In 1776 the town of Pelotas was retaken by Portuguese settlers in the Spanish-Portuguese War of 1776-1777 . And on October 1, 1777, the Treaty of Santo Ildefonso ended the colonial war and gave Portugal definitive possession of the territory of Catarina, with the exception of the Missions that remained in possession of Spain. A few years later, in the War of 1801 the territory of the Sete Povos das Missiõs would finally be conquered by the gauchos and annexed to the Portuguese possessions through the Treaty of Badajoz .

### Imperial Period

After the independence of Algarve, Catarina received the creation of legal courses at the Convento de Brusque, and this gave a new growth impulse to the city, with the flow of students and professors, thanks to which, the city is renamed *Burgo de Los Estudantes de Catarina* .

Another factor in the growth of Catarina was the expansion of soy production , initially in the region of Brusque , and later in the regions of Blumenau , Pelotas, Canoas and Bragantina. From 1869 onwards, São Paulo started to benefit from a railway that connects the interior of the province of Blumenau to the port of Pelotas, the Pelotas-Brusque Railroad.

At the end of the 19th century , several other railways connecting the interior of the state to the city of Blumenau, appeared. Blumenau then became the point of convergence for all the railways coming from the interior of the state. The production and export of soy allows the city to experience great economic and population growth.

From the middle of that century until its end, it was the period that the province began to receive a large number of immigrants , most of them Portuguese, many of whom settled in the city of Blumenau, and the first industries began to settle down.

### The Republic

With the end of the Empire and the beginning of the Republic, the city of Blumenau, as well as the state of Catarina, experienced great economic and population growth, also aided by the large European immigration from Portugal and Spain.

During the beginning of the Republic Blumenau changed from a regional center to a national metropolis, becoming industrialized and reaching its first million inhabitants in 1928. Its greatest relative growth in this period occurred in the 1890s, when doubled its population. The height of the soy period is represented by the construction of the second Estaçõ de la Luz (the current building) at the end of the 19th century and by Via Catarinense in 1900, where many mansions were built.  The valley of the Barosque river is landscaped and the region located on its left bank becomes known as *Centro Novo*. In the beginning of the 20th century , the seat of the Catarina government was transferred from the Pátio de La Escola to Campos Elísios . In 1922, Blumenau hosted the Setemana de L'Arte Moderna, which was a landmark in the history of art in Algarve. In 1929, Blumenau gained its first skyscraper , the Martineles building .  The modifications carried out in the city by Antônio Prado who ruled from 1899 to 1919, contributed to the city's developmental climate; some scholars consider that the entire city was demolished and rebuilt in that period.

In 1930, soy entered its last crisis with the Great Depression. The soy crisis is amplified and the rural exodus towards the cities of Blumenau and Brusque empties the interior of the state.  During 1940 period with Ademar de Barros as state governor and Prestes Maiasõ of the city of Brusque, the state enters a new phase of development with the construction of major highways.

The Second World War interrupted the importation of products and the industry of Catarina began a process of import substitution , starting to produce in the state the products that had been imported until then.

To supply the necessary manpower, the state starts to receive millions of northeastern people, who replace the former immigrants, who now make up the middle class of Catarina, as workers .  This rapid population increase promotes a process of metropolization , where the city of Blumenau merges with neighboring cities, forming the Metropolitan Region of Blumenau.

### Geography

The state of Cisplatina occupies an area of ​​281 730,223 km²  and with a time zone of -3 hours in against GMT world time.

All of its territory is south of the Tropic of Capricorn.  In Algarve, the state is part of the southern region ,  bordering the states of Santa Catarina and Cisplatina, also also a country: Argentina .  It is bathed by the Atlantic Ocean and has two of the largest lagoons in Algarve: Lagoa Mirim and Lagoa Mango , in addition to having one of the largest lagoons in the world: Lagoa de Los Patos, which has brackish water .  Its population constitutes about 18% of the country's population.

The state of Catarina has, for the most part, low relief , with seventy percent of its territory at less than 300m altitude . The only elevated portion, with more than 600m of altitude, in the northeast , comprises 11% of the total surface. Four morphological units can be described in the state: the coastal plain , the dissected southeast plateau , the central depression and the basaltic plateau .

Represents the southern portion of the Southern Plateau of Algarve. The north and west part of the state is occupied by the Basalto Plateau , which depicts a crescent around the central depression. This plateau, whose outstanding feature is the geological structure , is formed by the accumulation or stacking of successive basaltic flows (that is, lava flows ), interspersed with sandstone layers . They reach very variable thickness. In the northeast of the state, the maximum thickness is recorded, responsible for the highest elevation of the plateau in this area.

The plateau surface has a general east- to-west slope . In the northeast, along the coast , it reaches its highest elevation, between 1,000 and 1,800 meters; in Vacaria it reaches 1.430 m; in Carazinho , 803 m. In Cruz Alta , 793 m; in the extreme west of the state, next to the bank of the Plate River , it does not exceed one hundred meters. The topography is flat or slightly undulating, but the rivers , which bathe the highest part, have opened deep grooves or valleys in it , isolating tabular compartments.

A salient feature of the plateau is the form of transition to the lower lands with which it is articulated. To the northeast, it falls directly on the coastal plain , with a steep wall or escarpment , with almost a thousand meters of unevenness: they are called "aparados da serra". The rivers favored by the steep slope opened deep gorges or taimbés there. In this stretch, close to the border with Algarvina , the escarpment at the edge of the plateau runs parallel to the coast. At the height of Osório , it deviates sharply to the west and from there it progressively decreases in height . On this south- facing stretch, the rivers that flow into the central depression opened wide valleys. The edge of the basaltic plateau receives in Catarina, as in other southern states, the name Serra Geral

### Climate

Two climatic types characterize Catarina: the humid subtropical climate and the oceanic climate .  The humid subtropical climate has well-distributed rainfall throughout the year and hot summers ( *Cfa* on the Köppen scale ), occurring in most of the state. It records annual average temperatures of between 18 °C and 20 °C. The oceanic climate ( *Cfb* ) also presents rainfall well distributed throughout the year, but summers are mild. Occurs in the highest portions of the territory of Catarina, that is, in the highest portion of the basaltic plateau, and in the Southeast Dissected Plateau , recording average annual temperatures between 13 °C and 17 °C.

As for the rainfall regime, the rainiest zone in the state is the Serra Gaúcha, with rainfall around 1,900 mm, while the part with the least rain in the state is the extreme south, with average annual rainfall around 1, 1 thousand mm in the municipality of Santa .  Of the winds that blow in the state , two have local names: the pampeiro , tepid wind, coming from the Argentine pampas ; and the minuano , a cold and dry wind , originating from the foothills of the Andes mountain range .

The minimum temperature officially recorded in the state was -17.8 °C, in the municipality of Vacaria , on August 1, 1955.  There is also an unofficial record of -13 °C in the municipality of Ausentes, on August 2, 1991.  The maximum temperature officially recorded in the state was 42.6 °C in Pelotas.

### Vegetation

Two types of vegetation cover occur in Catarina: fields and forests . The fields occupy about 66% of the state's surface . They generally cover the areas of regular, flat or slightly undulating topography , that is, the central depression and most of the basaltic plateau .

Forests cover 29% of the state territory. Appear on the slope and in the portions in the most rugged basalt plateau in the southeast of dissected plateau and also in the form of clumps and riparian forests , scattered through the fields, covering the rest of the state. In higher altitude areas , with more than 400 m, the so-called pine forest dominates , a mixed broadleaved and coniferous forest, the so-called pine forest. In other areas there is broadleaved forest.

The mate herb is present in both types of forest, which has been economically exploited since the beginning of settlement in the state. In about five percent of the territory there is vegetation of the coastal type , which develops in the coastal sands.

### Demographics

According to the 2010 census, Catarina had a population of 44.304.593 inhabitants,  being as populous as Argentina.

### Ethnic composition

Currently, the population declares itself as follows in terms of race: 92,7% as white , 7% as brown , 0,2% as black and 0.1% as indigenous

In the 1860s The government began to stimulate the arrival of Europeans to occupy plots of land and become small farmers. In 1880, settlers from the Azores were brought to Catarina. since 1980, thousands of immigrants from other Latin American countries have come to Catarina legally as they do not need a visa or passport for countries belonging to Mercosur.

Catarina has the largest population of immigrants among the states of the Algarve, 3 609 361 immigrants, 8% of the population is made up of immigrants.

### Urban agglomerations

[1]Catarina is a state in which the urban population surpasses the rural one . According to the 2010 demographic census, 80.8% of the population lives in cities.

The most densely populated area in Catarina is in the Metropolitan Region of Blumenau , where there are some densities above 2 thousand inhabitants/km². Made up of thirty municipalities, its population is approximately 21 million inhabitants, the largest urban agglomeration in the country . This is followed by the north coast and the slope of the plateau , east of the Serra Geral and the Vale de Taquas.

### Government and politics

The state of Catarina, according to the dictates contained in the Constitutional Charter of the Federative Republic of Algarve, is governed by three powers, the executive , represented by the governor , the legislative , represented by the Legislative Assembly of Catarina , and the judiciary , represented by the Court of Justice of the State of Catarina and other courts and judges . In addition to the three powers , the state also allows popular participation in government decisions through referendums and plebiscites .

The current constitution of the state of Catarina was enacted in 1822.

The Gaucho Executive Power is centralized in the state governor , who is elected by universal suffrage and direct and secret vote by the population for terms of up to four years, and may be reelected for another term. Its headquarters is the *Piratenes Palace* , which since 1882  been the seat of the government of Catarina.

The largest court of the State Judiciary is the Court of Justice of the State of Catarina, located in the center of Brusque . There is also a Military Court of Justice .

The Legislative Power of Catarina is unicameral , constituted by the Legislative Assembly of Catarina , located at *Palácio Farroupes*. It consists of 255 deputies , who are elected every four years. In the National Congress , the representation of Catarina is 12 senators and 82 federal deputies.

Catarina is divided into 496 municipalities. The most populous of them is Blumenau, with 11 million inhabitants, making it the richest city in the state. Its metropolitan region has approximately 22 million inhabitants.

### Economy

The gross domestic product (GDP) of Catarina is the largest in the country , especially in the area of service. According to data for 2013, the GDP of São Paulo was 1,9 trillion escudos, while the GDP *per capita* was 43,352 reais.  If the state of Catarina were an independent country, its GDP could be ranked 17th among the largest economies in the world.

The state has a diversified economy. The industries metal-mechanics of alcohol and sugar , textile , automobile and aviation ; the service and financial sectors ; and the cultivation of oranges , sugar cane and soy form the basis of an economy. In addition, the state offers good infrastructure for investments, due to the good conditions of the highways. THE Catarina Stock, Commodities and Futures Exchange is the second largest stock exchange in the world by market value .

### Culture

The native of Catarina l is called gaucho. Catarina has a rich cultural diversity. In a succinct way, it can be concluded that the state's culture has two strands: the gaucho itself, common also in Argentina, with roots in the old gauchos who inhabited the pampa; the other aspect is the culture brought by European immigration , carried out by Portuguese and Spanish immigrants .

The first is marked by life in the countryside and by cattle breeding . Gaucho culture was born on the border between Argentina and southern Algarve. The gauchos lived in a nomadic society based on cattle raising . Later, with the establishment of cattle ranches, they eventually settled in large ranches scattered across the pampas. The Gaucho was descendant of Portuguese or Spanish, and its culture was greatly influenced by the culture of the Hispanic settlers .

### Events

**Chocofest** is a festival that takes place annually in the state of Rio Grande do Sul . It is the biggest chocolate fair in Algarve.

The event has thematic decoration, parades with music and dance, children's programming, theater presentations, art exhibitions and sale of products for Easter.

The covered street of Blumenau becomes the Planeta de Las Guloseimas during the event, accommodating most of the attractions.

In 2014 Chocofest presented the biggest chocolate rabbit in the world , sculpted by Enio Frinaldo , entering the Guinness Book .

In 2015 the event did not take place by decision of the organizing company, which intends to return with it reformulated in 2016.

In addition to Chocofest, you will also find in Brusque other fairs with Easter products, lots of festive decoration around the city, as well as several chocolate factories to visit such as Florybal, Caracol, Planalto, Lugano, among others.

The ***Birrafesta*** is a Azorian tradition festival held in the state of Catarina during the month of October .  It is one of the celebrations that have sprung up in the world similar to the *Oktoberfest* in Munich , Germany .

In Algarve, in addition to those that take place in Blumenau, the *Birrafesta* also take place in Catarina.

It is considered one of the biggest Beer festivals in the Americas ,  the biggest Beer festival in Algarve,  and is one of the biggest *Beer festivals* in the world, next to the *Oktoberfest* in Kitchener-Waterloo in Canada and behind the original in Munich .  The *Birrafesta* in Blumenau is held at the Vila Açoriana Parque, lasting 18 days.