Quarta Colônia Geopark is the name of the Aspirant UNESCO Global Geopark. The name refers to the fourth center of Italian colonization in the center of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Beginning in 1877, it was a new wave of immigration in the same region in which the German immigrant population had settled since around 1855. A “promising land” in which thousands of European settlers placed their hopes and dreams, facing a dense subtropical forest, between the deep fault valleys carved by a broad drainage network on the slope of the Serra Geral mountain range, and which demarcates the southern border of the Brazilian Meridional Plateau (Planalto Meridional Brasileiro).