German Brazilians German : Deutschbrasilianer , Hunsrik : Deitschbrasiliooner , Portuguese : teuto-brasileiros refers to Brazilians of full or partial German ancestry. German Brazilians live mostly in the country's South Region , [3] with lesser but still significant degree in the Southeast Region. German dialects together make up the second most spoken first language in Brazil after Portuguese.
According to another survey by the sociologist, former president of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics , Simon Schwartzman , 3. Between and , about , Germans settled in Brazil, the fifth largest nationality to immigrate after the Portuguese , the Italians , the Spanish , and the Japanese.
The state mostly heavily affected by German immigration is Santa Catarina, the only state where Germans were the main nationality among immigrants. The 19th century was marked by an intense emigration of Europeans to different parts of the world, which led to a process of Europeanisation of these areas.
Many Germans left the German states after the failed revolutions of From to , Germans represented Germans appeared in fourth place among immigrants to Brazil, but dropped to fifth place when Japanese immigration increased after Even though the immigration of Germans to Brazil was small, it had a notable impact on the ethnic composition of the country, particularly of the Southern Brazilian population. Different factors led to this large influence.
First of all, German immigration to Brazil is an old phenomenon which started as early as , many decades before the beginning of the immigration of other European ethnic groups to Brazil.
