Leopoldina is a municipality in the Brazilian
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
of
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...
. , it has a population of 52,640.
It is situated in the southeastern
Zona da Mata
The Zona da Mata (, directly translated to grass zone/grassy zone) is the narrow coastal plain between the Atlantic Ocean and the dry ''agreste'' and ''sertão'' regions in the northeastern Brazilian states of Maranhão, Piauí, Rio Grande do No ...
mesoregion of the state.
The municipality contains the
Lapinha Biological Reserve, a strictly-protected area of
Atlantic Forest
The Atlantic Forest ( pt, Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and th ...
.
Leopoldina was the site of a wave of immigration of
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, mostly from
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
, in the 1920s and 1930s, as detailed in a book ''Jews of Leopoldina'', published in 2007 by the
Jewish Museum of Rio de Janeiro.
["Dateline World Jewry", April 2007, ]World Jewish Congress
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress' main purpose is to act as ...
The city is also the seat of the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Leopoldina
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Leopoldina ( la, Dioecesis Leopoldinensis) is a diocese located in the city of Leopoldina, Minas Gerais, Leopoldina in the Ecclesiastical province of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora in Brazil ...
.
References
Municipalities in Minas Gerais
{{MinasGerais-geo-stub