By far the most important center for Germans in the state is the capital, Curityba.  There are some 12,000 German-speaking residents in this city.  In addition, a large number are located in the important cities of Lapa, Ponta Grossa, Porto da Uniao and Castro.[22]

A large part of the German element in Parana is due to indirect immigration from Santa Catharina.

SANTA CATHARINA.

=Sao Pedro de Alcantara=, a state colony, was founded in 1828.[23] Its first settlers came mainly from the Rhine district.

=Itajahy=[24] and =Santa Izabel=, two other state colonies were founded in 1835 and 1846 respectively.

=Blumenau=, a private colony (originally), was founded in 1850 by Dr. Hermann Blumenau.[25] The first settlers were mainly natives of Pomerania and Mecklenburg.  Blumenau is the most widely known (largely because of its German name) and one of the most important German colonies in Brazil to-day.  According to Carvalho “Blumenau constitue dans l’Amerique du Sud le type le plus parfait de la colonisation europeenne."[26] The area of the “municipio"[27] covers 10,725 square kilometers and is populated by about 60,000 inhabitants, the great majority of whom are of German descent.[28] The “Stadtplatz"[29] is composed mainly of one street 5-1/2 kilometers in length (including Altona) and is most beautifully situated on the right bank of the river Itajahy-Assu.  It contains about 3,000 inhabitants, nearly all of whom are Germans.

=Dona Francisca= was founded in 1851 as a private colony by the “Hamburger Kolonisationsverein von 1849.”  It comprises the territory given as a marriage dot by Dom Pedro II. to his sister, Dona Francisca, at the time of her marriage to the Prince of Joinville of the French House of Orleans.  The “Stadtplatz” of the colony was named Joinville in honor of the prince.

Dona Francisca was founded under favorable circumstances at a time when many Germans, including members of the “upper classes” were leaving the Fatherland on account of the general political discontent during the latter part of the forties of the past century.  This fact is reflected in the German language as spoken in Joinville to-day.  It is perhaps more free from dialect than in any other German colony in Brazil.  The general cultural status of the inhabitants of Germanic origin is relatively high.

The entire colony (municipio) of Dona Francisca contains more than 30,000 inhabitants; the “Stadtplatz” about 6,000.  In both, the inhabitants of Germanic origin form the great majority.

The colony of =Brusque=[30] was founded in 1860.  Its early colonists were composed largely of former inhabitants of the Rheinland, Westphalia, Oldenburg and Baden.  Next to Blumenau and Dona Francisca, Brusque is to-day the most important German colony in Santa Catharina.

In the territory not included in the “municipios” mentioned above, the larger part of the inhabitants of the following centers are of German descent:  Angelina and Santa Thereza, both founded in 1853; Therezopolis, founded in 1860; Palhoca, Braco do Norte and Pedras Grandes.