Santa Catarina (state) in the context of "Southern Cone"

The Lombard language (Lombard: lombard, lumbard, lumbart or lombart, depending on the orthography; pronunciation: [lũˈbaːrt, lomˈbart]) belongs to the Gallo-Italic group within the Romance languages. It is characterized by a Celtic linguistic substratum and a Lombardic linguistic superstratum and is a cluster of homogeneous dialects that are spoken by millions of speakers in Northern Italy and southern Switzerland. These include most of Lombardy and some areas of the neighbouring regions, notably the far eastern side of Piedmont and the extreme western side of Trentino, and in Switzerland in the cantons of Ticino and Graubünden. The language is also spoken in Santa Catarina in Brazil by Lombard immigrants from the Province of Bergamo, in Italy.

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.

The Juliana Republic (Portuguese: República Juliana) or the Catarinense Republic (República Catarinense), fully and officially the Free and Independent Catarinense Republic (República Catarinense Livre e Independente), was a revolutionary state that existed between 29 July and 15 November 1839, in the province of Santa Catarina of the Empire of Brazil. The Republic was proclaimed in an extension of the Ragamuffin War started in the neighboring province of Rio Grande do Sul, where the Rio-Grandense Republic had already been created.

Forces of the revolutionary Riograndense Republic, led by General David Canabarro and Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, with help from the local population, conquered the harbor city of Laguna on 22 July 1839, in a battle known as the Capture of Laguna [pt]. The Catarinense Republic was then proclaimed on 29 July, at the city's municipal chamber. Canabarro assumed temporarily the office of president until an electoral college was assembled and elections were held on 7 August. For president and vice president were elected, respectively, Joaquim Xavier Neves [pt], a Lieutenant-colonel of the National Guard of São José, and his uncle, the priest Vicente Ferreira dos Santos Cordeiro [pt], who assumed the presidential office due to a blockade by the Imperial Army that prevented Joaquim Xavier Neves from reaching Laguna.

San La Muerte (Saint Death) is a skeletal folk saint that is venerated in Paraguay, Argentina (mainly in the province of Corrientes but also in Misiones, Chaco and Formosa) and southern Brazil (specifically in the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul). As a result of internal migration in Argentina since the 1960s, the veneration of San La Muerte has spread to Greater Buenos Aires and to the national prison system as well.

Saint Death is depicted as a male skeleton figure, usually holding a scythe. Although the Catholic Church has rebuked the devotion of Saint Death as a tradition that mixes paganism with Christianity and is contrary to the belief of Resurrection of Jesus defeating death, many devotees view the veneration of San La Muerte as part of their Catholic faith.

The South Region of Brazil (Região Sul do Brasil [ʁeʒiˈɐ̃w ˈsuw du bɾaˈziw]) is one of the five regions of Brazil. 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. Its whole area is smaller than that of the state of Minas Gerais, in Southeast Brazil, for example or the whole metropolitan France.

It is a tourist, economic and cultural pole. It borders Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay, as well as the Centre-West and Southeast regions, and the Atlantic Ocean. The region is considered the safest in Brazil to visit, having a lower crime rate than other regions in the country.

Joinville (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˌʒoĩˈvili] ) is the largest city in Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil. It is the third largest municipality in the southern region of Brazil, after the much larger state capitals of Curitiba and Porto Alegre. Joinville is also a major industrial, financial and commerce center.

The city has a very high human development index (0.809) among Brazilian municipalities, being 21st nationally, and has one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. One study pointed to Joinville as the second best city to live in Brazil.

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.

Hunsrik (natively Hunsrik [ˈhunsɾɪk], Hunsrückisch or Hunsrickisch and Portuguese hunsriqueano or hunsriqueano riograndense), also called Riograndese Hunsrik, Riograndenser Hunsrückisch or Katharinensisch, is a Moselle Franconian language derived primarily from the Hunsrückisch dialect of West Central German which is spoken in parts of South America. A co-official language in the Brazilian municipalities of Antônio Carlos, Santa Maria do Herval, and São João do Oeste, Hunsrik is spoken in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Paraná, as well as some regions of neighboring Paraguay and Argentina. It has been an integral part of the historical and cultural heritage of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul since 2012, and considered an intangible cultural heritage of Santa Catarina state since 2016.

Hunsrik developed from the Hunsrückisch dialect spoken by immigrants from the Hunsrück region of Germany (Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland) who settled in Brazil's southern region such as Rio Grande do Sul, beginning under the Empire of Brazil in 1824. This immigration later fell under the control of individual states, and then of private European investment enterprises. While primarily based on the Hunsrückisch branch of the German language, it has also been greatly influenced by other German dialects such as East Pomeranian and Plautdietsch and by Portuguese, the national language of Brazil. It has been influenced to a lesser extent by indigenous languages such as Kaingang and Guarani and by immigrant languages such as Italian and Talian.