Misiones Province

Almost surrounded by Brazil and Paraguay, mountainous Misiones has the highest-profile sights of any Mesopotamian province. In the upper Paraná drainage, shared with Brazil, the Cataratas del Iguazú (Iguazú Falls [1]) pull visitors from around the globe. The Jesuit-mission ruins of San Ignacio [2] across the border in Paraguay are additional reasons to visit.

Averaging about 500 meters above sea level, once covered with subtropical forest, Misiones’s mountains are fast giving way to plantations of tea, yerba mate, and northern hemisphere pines. In a few areas, coniferous native araucarias still dominate the natural vegetation.