Grünhufe

Grünhufe
Municipality
Flag Seal
Mottoes:  Ex Novo Ad Astra From the new, to the stars
Country	Ebenthal
Region	Northern Hills
Historic countries	Brazil
Settled	1888
Incorpored into Ebenthal	6 April 2015
Schwarzi monarchy abolished	5 February 2022
Province established	1 January 2023
Founded by	Fernando Toledo dos Santos
Government
• Type	Executive-led devolved administration
• Chief Executive	Hugo Toledo
Area
• Total	0.2 km2 (0.08 sq mi)
• Water	0 km2 (0 sq mi)  0%
Elevation	754 m (2,474 ft)
Population  (2023)
• Total	6 (permanent)
• Rank	6th in Ebenthal
Demonym	Grünhufian
Time zone	UTC−3
Postal Code	27580-000
Area code	+55 32
HDI (2022)	0.910 very high (TBD)

Grünhufe (German pronunciation: [gʁʏnçu:fə]), officialy Municipality of Grünhufe (Portuguese: Município de Grünhufe) is a municipality and one of the eight municipalities of Ebenthal. It is the third least populous municipality in the country, with 6 permanent residents. The province is also the smallest administrative division in Ebenthal with only 0.2 km² entirely landlocked by the Brazilian municipality of Juiz de Fora. It is administered through an executive-led devolved government by a Chief Executive appointed by the King of Ebenthal, and is represented in the House of Councillors by one elected member.

The territory of modern Grünhufe served as route to inland Amerindians to reach the Atlantic coast. Following the Portuguese colonization and the creation of the State of Brazil, the larger territory of the present province served as a Luso-Brazilian gold route trading post during the Brazilian gold rush in the 18th century. Over the course of the 19th century, as Brazil became independent, the village of Santo Antônio do Paraibuna was elevated to the status of a municipality in 1856 and renamed Juiz de Fora in 1865, after the office of Juiz de Fora (lit. judge from the outside), who was the former magistrate of the Portuguese crown responsible for exercising justice in the former sesmaria of Juiz de Fora during the gold cicle. In 1888 the Toledo dos Santos family settled in Juiz de Fora. In early 2015, the government of the seccessionist and unrecognized Kingdom of Ebenthal approached the Toledo dos Santos family inviting some of its members known to Ebenthali government members to become politicians in the micronation. With the acceptance, Hugo de Toledo, the main heir to his family's possessions, signed the sovereignty concession contract by which the properties and areas in Juiz de Fora and in also Itatiaia to which he is entitled were incorporated into Ebenthal under the name of Negromonte, in allusion to the Itatiaia's Pico das Agulhas Negras, and he was proclaimed Prince of Negromonte. Four monarchs succeeded each other on the throne of Negromonte until 5 February 2022 when the Negromontine monarchy was abolished through the Ebenthali Unitary Act and the principality became a province, subsequently renamed by the Luso-Germanic Cultural Commission as Schwarzberg. On 1 January 2023 Schwarzberg, which until then included the municipalities of Frumar, Andeca and the capital Maldras, was dismembered, separating the enclaves of Itatiaia and Juiz de Fora, the latter becoming the municipality of Grünhufe, encompassing the former municipality of Andeca.

Despite its minuscule size, Grünhufe is considered one of the most advanced municipalities in the country, with a very high quality of life. Still according to data from the Ministry of the Interior, the Grünhufians are considered the happiest people of Ebenthal. The municipality is also a well-known national tourist destination for its infrastructure and mild temperature, which makes it different from its parent municipality Lüttenhausen, which despite the low temperatures, has poor infrastructure for tourism.

Etimology

The word "Grünhufe" is a combination of the German word grüne (green) and the German toponymy hufe (hide), and means "green hiding place" alluding to the vast native Atlantic forest of the Serra do Mar (lit. sea mountain range) that surrounds the territory of the province.