About thirty kilometers to the north of Blumenau, a city in Brazil, lies the town of Pomerode, so named because its founders came from Pomerania, a region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, split between Germany and Poland. The town was founded more than 150 years ago, yet even today, ninety percent of the town’s 25,000 inhabitants speak German with a distinct 19th century Pommersch accent.

Pomerode is probably one of the “most German towns in Brazil.” This is immediately apparent as soon as one enters the town through the arched gateway. Every cottage and building is built in the traditional German style characterized by exposed brick within a frame of exposed wood, that recalls a rural German setting from the 1900s.

Photo credit: Mathias Fingermann/Flickr