The total length of railway lines in the state is nearly 2 ,000m. The main lines include the one from Rio Grande to Uruguayana, from Revara, near Uruguay, through the central part of the state to the northern border, and one from Porto Alegre to Santa Maria. The Quarahim to Itaquy line belongs to an English company and runs from the Uruguayan frontier, where it connects with the North-Western of Uruguay, northward to Uruguayana and the naval station of Itaquy.
The pop. in 1900 was 1,149,070; in 1933 (est.), There is a large foreign element; in 1905 the total number of foreigners residing in the state was estimated at 400,00o (not including children born in the country), and of Germans at 250,000. The first German colony was founded in 1824 and settled in 1825 in the rich forested country north of Porto Alegre, and many large and prosperous communities have been established since then in spite of the wars and political agitations in the state. Several of these colonies, such as Sao Leopoldo, Novo Hamburgo and Conde d'Eu (now Garibaldi), have become important towns and are no longer under colonial administration. Italian colonies were subsequently established, also with good results, but an Irish colony founded at Monte Bonito, near Pelotas, about 1851, failed completely. The capital of Rio Grande do Sul is Porto Alegre (pop. 1920, 179,263) at the northern extremity of Lag& dos Patos, and its two next most important cities are Rio Grande and Pelotas, both at the southern extremity of the same lake.
Among other important cities and towns with population re turns for 1920 are Alegrete (18,372), prettily situated in the western part of the state on the Porto Alegre to Uruguayana railway; Bage (24,424), about 173m. by rail north-west of Rio Grande in a picturesque mountainous region, 7o2ft. above sea level; Jaguarao (11,079), on a river of the same name and opposite the Uruguayan town of Artigas, with steamboat com munication with Rio Grande ; Cacapava (7,834) in a fine grazing district in the central part of the state, 1,732ft. above sea-level; Quarahim or Quarahy (10,369), a town of much commercial importance on the Quarahim river opposite the Uruguayan town of Santo Eugenio.
History.—The territory was settled along the Uruguay by the Jesuits when they were compelled to abandon their missions on the upper Parana. Between 1632 and 1707 they founded on the east side of the Uruguay seven missions—all under Spanish juris diction—which became highly prosperous, and at the time of their transfer from Spanish to Portuguese rule by a treaty of 1750 had an aggregate population of about 14,00o, living in villages and possessing large herds of cattle and many horses. A joint effort of the two powers in 1753 to enforce the treaty, remove the Indians to Spanish territory, and mark the boundary line, led to resistance and a three years' war, which ended in the capture and partial destruction of the missions. On the coast
the first recognized settlement—a military post at Estreito, near the present city of Rio Grande—was made in 1737. Before this, and as early as 1680, according to some chroniclers, the region south of Santa Catharina was occupied by settlements, or penal colonies of degradados (banished men) and immoral women from Santos, Sao Vicente and Sao Paulo, and was known as the "Con tinente de Sao Pedro." In 1738 the territory (which included the present state of Santa Catharina) became the Capitania d'El Rei and was made a dependency of Rio de Janeiro. Territorial dis putes between Spain and Portugal led to the occupation by the Spanish of the town of Rio Grande (then the capital of the capitania) and neighbouring districts from 1763 to 1776, when they reverted to the Portuguese. The capture of Rio Grande in 1763 caused the removal of the seat of government to Viamio at the head of Lagoa dos Patos; in 1773 Porto dos Cazaes, re named Porto Alegre, became the capital. In 1801 news of war between Spain and Portugal led the inhabitants of Rio Grande to attack and capture the seven missions and some frontier posts held by the Spaniards since 1763 ; since 1801 the boundary lines established by treaty in 1777 have remained unchanged. The districts of Santa Catharina and Rio Grande had been separated in 1760 for military convenience, and in 1807 the latter was ele vated to the category of a capitania-geral, with the designation of "Sao Pedro do Rio Grande," independent of Rio de Janeiro, and with Santa Catharina as a dependency. In 1812 Rio Grande and Santa Catharina were organized into two distinct comarcas, the latter becoming an independent province in 1822 when the empire was organized. In 1835 a separatist revolution broke out in the province and lasted ten years. It was reduced more through the use of money and favours than by force of arms; but the province had suffered terribly in the struggle and did not recover its losses for many years. An incident in this contest was the enlistment of Garibaldi for a short time with the forces of the separatists. In 1865 a Paraguayan army invaded the state and on Aug. 5 occupied the town of Uruguayana. On Sept. 18 fol lowing, the Paraguayan general (Estigarribia) surrendered with out a fight—an unusual occurrence in the remarkable war that followed. Political agitations have been frequent in Rio Grande do Sul, whose people have something of the temperament of their Spanish neighbours, but no important revolution occurred after the "ten years' war" (1835-45) until the presidency at Rio de Janeiro of Gen. Floriano Peixoto, whose ill-considered interference with the State governments led to the revolt of 1892-94, under Gumersindo Saraiva. In this struggle the revolu tionists occupied Santa Catharina and Parana, capturing Curityba, but were eventually overthrown through lack of munitions.