Misiones Province in the context of "Santa Catarina (state)"

The Uruguay River (Spanish: Río Uruguay [ˈri.o wɾuˈɣwaj]; Portuguese: Rio Uruguai [ˈʁi.u uɾuˈɡwaj]) is a major river in South America. It flows from north to south and forms parts of the boundaries of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, separating some of the Argentine provinces of the Mesopotamia from the other two countries. It passes between the states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil; forms the eastern border of the provinces of Misiones, Corrientes and Entre Ríos in Argentina; and makes up the western borders of the departments of Artigas, Salto, Paysandú, Río Negro, Soriano and Colonia in Uruguay.

Paraná (Brazilian Portuguese: [paɾɐˈna] ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, in the south of the country. It is bordered in the north by São Paulo state, in the east by the Atlantic Ocean, in the south by Santa Catarina state and the Argentine province of Misiones, and in the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and Paraguay, with the Paraná River as its western boundary. It is subdivided into 399 municipalities, and its capital is the city of Curitiba. Other major cities are Londrina, Maringá, Ponta Grossa, Cascavel, São José dos Pinhais and Foz do Iguaçu. The state is home to 5.4% of the Brazilian population and generates 6.2% of the Brazilian GDP.

Crossed by the Tropic of Capricorn, Paraná has what is left of the araucaria forest, one of the most important subtropical forests in the world. At the border with Argentina is the National Park of Iguaçu, considered by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. 40 km (25 mi) from there, at the border with Paraguay, the largest dam in the world was built, the Hidroelétrica de Itaipu (Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam). The crime rate is considered low by Brazilian standards and the state is one of the most developed ones in the nation, ranking 4th in gross domestic product, only behind the states of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Minas Gerais.

The Guarani are a group of culturally-related Indigenous peoples of South America. They are distinguished from the related Tupi by their use of the Guarani language. The traditional range of the Guarani people is in what is now Paraguay between the Paraná River and lower Paraguay River, the Misiones Province of Argentina, southern Brazil once as far east as Rio de Janeiro, and parts of Uruguay and Bolivia.

Although their demographic dominance of the region has been reduced by European colonisation and the commensurate rise of mestizos, there are contemporary Guarani populations in Paraguay and parts of Argentina and Bolivia. Most notably, the Guarani language, still widely spoken across traditional Guarani homelands, is one of the two official languages in Paraguay, the other one being Spanish. The Paraguayan population learns Guarani both informally from social interaction and formally in public schools. In modern Spanish, Guaraní also refers to any Paraguayan national in the same way that the French are sometimes called Gauls.

Corrientes (Spanish pronunciation: [koˈrjentes], lit. ‘currents’ or ‘streams’; Guarani: Taragui), officially the Province of Corrientes (Spanish: Provincia de Corrientes; Guarani: Taragui Tetãmini) is a province in northeast Argentina, in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by (from the north, clockwise): Paraguay, Misiones, Brazil, Uruguay, and the provinces of Entre Rios, Santa Fe and Chaco.

Melipona is a genus of stingless bees, widespread in warm areas of the Neotropics, from Sinaloa and Tamaulipas (México) to Tucumán and Misiones (Argentina). About 70 species are known. The largest producer of honey from Melipona bees in Mexico is in the state of Yucatán where bees are studied at an interactive park called "Bee Planet" which is within the Cuxtal Ecological Reserve.

Several species are kept for honey production, such as in Brazil, where some are well-known enough to have common names, including uruçu, mandaçaia, jandaíra, and manduri. Melipona honey has long been used by humans and now is of minor commercial importance. Research is going on in improved beekeeping techniques.

Rio Grande do Sul (UK: /ˌriːuː ˌɡrændi duː ˈsʊl/, US: /- ˌɡrɑːndi duː ˈsuːl/; Portuguese: [ˈʁi.u ˈɡɾɐ̃dʒ(i) du ˈsuw] ; lit. "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 and it is divided into 497 municipalities. 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. 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.

The Mesopotamia or Región Mesopotámica is the humid and verdant area of northeast Argentina, comprising the provinces of Misiones, Entre Ríos, and Corrientes. The landscape and its characteristics are dominated by two rivers: the Paraná and the Uruguay.

When Spanish settlers came to the area, the two parallel rivers and the lush area between them drew comparisons to Mesopotamia (Greek: Μεσοποταμία "land between rivers") in modern-day Iraq, and it was decided that the Argentine region be named after the Iraqi region. The region shares many of its ecological features with neighboring regions of Argentina and with parts of Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.