Originally Posted by
Camargo
I can't speak for Chile or Argentina etc., but for the parts in Brazil, I agree with some statements made before here in the thread, while disagreeing with others.
In Brazil, Paraguay resembles more Mato Grosso do Sul and the interior of Paraná and São Paulo states.
In these three states, a cold form of yerba-maté is very much consumed, called tereré, just like in Paraguay. The sertanejo music of São Paulo was very much influenced by paraguayan guaranías since at least the 1940s (in the earlier decades, tropeiros from São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul were already influenced by the paraguayan music while droving livestock in the Paraguay/Paraná River basin).
São Paulo was well connected to colonial Paraguay at least until the 18th century (Paraguayans were among the first settlers of Sorocaba, an important city in the interior of São Paulo since the colonial era, just to give an example). Nowadays, in the frontier, a lot of people from Paraguay live in Foz do Iguaçu (Paraná) and Ponta Porã (Mato Grosso do Sul), and a lot of people from both cities also live in their Paraguayan counterparts (Ciudad del Este and Pedro Juan Caballero, respectively).
Also the climate is similar, bordering between subtropical and tropical climates, with average annual temperatures ranging from 20 to 23 degrees celsius (Paraná is subtropical and colder, but the Northern and Western regions are more akin to São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul and Paraguay).
About Rio Grande do Sul, Etelfrido already said interesting things, and Southern Farmer said what I was about to say: the pampean region is very similar to its Uruguayan and Argentinian counterparts. Most gauchos I've met speak very kindly about Uruguay due to the similarities in both sides of the frontier. Of course, the state is more similar to Santa Catarina (which the gaúchos were deeply involved in the settlement of a large part), but it is not out of place at all to say that their culture is very related to the other pampean regions.
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