Qualla: Mato Grosso do Sul

Mato Grosso do Sul: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The name translates as "Southern Thick Bush," but the defining feature of this Brazilian state isn't the forest at all. It's the water. The Pantanal, one of the world's largest tropical wetlands, spills across twelve of the state's municipalities, and the Paraguay River carries cattle, ore, and sugar toward the Atlantic through Corumbá's port. Mato Grosso do Sul covers 357,145 square kilometers, roughly the area of Germany, and shares borders with five Brazilian states and two foreign countries. It's a place where the scale of the land quietly dwarfs the scale of the map.

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Mato Grosso do Sul: Born in 1979

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The state is younger than most of its cattle ranchers. On October 11, 1977, Brazil's federal government split the old Mato Grosso in two, with the division taking full effect on January 1, 1979. The southern portion absorbed the former Federal Territory of Ponta Porã along the Pa...

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Mato Grosso do Sul: Where the Water Goes

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Tropic of Capricorn crosses the state's southern reaches, and from there two great river systems carry its wealth to the sea. Countless tributaries feed the Paraná River to the east. The Paraguay River defines the western border, integrating the state with Paraguay, Argentina...

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Mato Grosso do Sul: The Pantanal and Bonito

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Tourism concentrates in two places. The Pantanal, the inland marshes covering much of western Brazil, sprawls across the state with a variety of flora and fauna that shifts dramatically between flood and dry seasons. Twelve municipalities sit partly within it. Forests, sand banks...

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Mato Grosso do Sul: A Nation of Cattle and Grain

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

If Mato Grosso do Sul were a country, 2020 data would have made it the world's fifth-largest oilseed producer. It grows 10.5 million tons of soy, harvests 49 million tons of sugarcane, and runs the fourth-largest cattle herd in Brazil at 21.4 million animals. The state slaughters...

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Mato Grosso do Sul: Guarani Country

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Guarani-Kaiowá were the first peoples of this land, occupying the Nhande Ru Marangatu tropical rainforest and a far larger territory before non-indigenous contact in the 1800s. In the 1630s, Jesuit missionaries established short-lived missions among the Guarani in the Itatin ...

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