Bagé

Bagé is a municipality in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the South Region of Brazil. In 2020 its population was 121,335 across an area of about 4,096 square kilometres, and at the 2011 census it ranked as the seventeenth largest city in the state. The city was founded in 1811, when the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Diogo de Sousa, gathered a large force on the borderlands and set up a camp near the Cerros de Bagé, the site where the city now stands, and it was given city status in 1859. Its strategic location on the border gave it lasting military importance, and before it was reorganised as a city it was seized by military forces from Uruguay and Argentina. The surrounding countryside supports cattle and sheep ranching, meat packing and wool depots, and Bagé has become one of the largest wheat-producing areas in Rio Grande do Sul, with soybeans also grown in the region.