Montenegro is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

of the state of

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. As of 2020, it has 65,721 inhabitants. The town was established in 1847 to be settled primarily by German immigrants from the

Hunsrück The Hunsrück () is a long, triangular, pronounced upland in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the valleys of the Moselle-Saar (north-to-west), the Nahe (south), and the Rhine (east). It is continued by the Taunus mountains, past ...

region of southwest Germany. The local language was

Riograndenser Hunsrückisch Hunsrik (natively and Portuguese ''Hunsrik'' or ''Hunsrückisch''), also called ''Riograndenser Hunsrückisch'' or ''Katharinensisch'', is a Moselle Franconian language derived primarily from the Hunsrückisch dialect of West Central German. T ...

for most of its history, and it is still spoken there after 150 years of the initial settlement. Today, however,

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

prevails, mostly as a result of the campaign of the " Nacionalização" (''Nationalization'') forcefully imposed on all German and Italian settled areas of southern Brazil by president and dictator

Getúlio Vargas Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 14th and 17th president of Brazil, from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954. Due to his long and controversial tenure as Brazi ...

in the 1940s.

Railway connection

In 1909 a new railway line connected Montenegro to

São Leopoldo São Leopoldo () (Portuguese for ''Saint Leopold'') is a Brazilian industrial city located in the south state of Rio Grande do Sul. Geography It occupies a total area of 103.9 km² (around 80 km² urban area) at ''circa'' 30 km fro ...

, which led to a quickening of economic development both in Montenegro itself and in other regional municipalities such as

Maratá Maratá is a municipality in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. See also *List of municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul This is a list of the municipalities in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), located in the South Region of Brazil. Rio ...

Salvador do Sul Salvador do Sul is a municipality in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. See also *List of municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul This is a list of the municipalities in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), located in the South Region of Brazi ...

and

Barão Barão is a municipality in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. It includes the districts Arroio Canoas, Francesa Alta, General Neto and Francesa Baixa. Barão is 80 km from Porto Alegre. The municipality is bordered by Carlos Barbosa (n ...

. The railway was extended in 1932 and again in 1950, but at the end of the 1960s it was closed. It was subsequently decided to convert the former railway station into a "Cultural Center".

Distinguished sons and daughters

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...

Cláudio Hummes Cláudio Hummes, OFM (; born Auri Alfonso Hummes; 8 August 1934 – 4 July 2022) was a Brazilian prelate of the Catholic Church. He was prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 2006 to 2010, having served as Archbishop of Fortaleza fr ...

, one of the candidates to the Catholic Church papacy in April 2005, was born in the area. On July 2, 2008,

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...

erected the new

Roman Catholic Diocese of Montenegro The Roman Catholic Diocese of Montenegro ( la, Dioecesis Nigromontana) is a suffragan Latin diocese in the Ecclesiastical province of its mother see, the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Porto Alegre (in the state capital) in Rio Grande do Sul state ...

, making it a Suffragan See in the province of the metropolitan archdiocese of

Porto Alegre Porto Alegre (, , Brazilian ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its population of 1,488,252 inhabitants (2020) makes it the List of largest cities in Brazil, twelfth most populous city in the country ...

, from whose territory it was taken.

References

Municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul {{RioGrandedoSul-geo-stub