Horizontina

Horizontina (Portuguese pronunciation: ['oɾizõtʃinɐ]) is a municipality and a city in Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil, with 19,174 inhabitants in 2014. Is located 496 km north of the state capital. The first settlers were German, Italian and Polish immigrants who arrived in the region in 1927, though the city was created only in 1955. Nowadays, most of the inhabitants are of German-Brazilian descent.

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen was raised in Horizontina.

The city an average annual temperature of 20.8 °C. With 79.4% of the population living in the urban area, the city counted in 2009 with eleven healthcare facilities. Its Human Development Index (HDI) is 0.783, considered high by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the 11th largest in the Rio Grande do Sul state, the 110th of Brazil and the first of its micro-region.

The colonization of the city occurred in 1927, when the first German colonists arrived in the region. A year later came more families from other ethnic groups, causing the place to develop. The first name of the city council was Belo Horizonte, later becoming Vila Horizonte, Horizonte and the current name, Horizontina, in 1944. Before being elevated to a municipality, it was a district in the municipality of Santa Rosa. Only in December 1954 the district was emancipated.