Villa Rica is the largest city in the interior of Paraguay, on the railway from Asunción

Asunción

Asunción is the capital and largest city of Paraguay.The "Ciudad de Asunción" is an autonomous capital district not part of any department. The metropolitan area, called Gran Asunción, includes the cities of San Lorenzo, Fernando de la Mora, Lambaré, Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso, Ñemby, San...

 (70 m. N.W.) to Encarnación

Encarnación, Paraguay

Encarnación is the capital city of the Paraguayan department of Itapúa, located at the south of the department, on the right-hand shore of the Paraná River, opposite Posadas, Argentina...

. Pop. (1910) about 25,000. Situated in a rich agricultural region watered by the upper Tepicuary, with finely timbered mountains extending to the E. and W., Villa Rica has an important trade in tobacco

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 and yerba maté

Yerba mate

Maté, yerba maté or erva maté , Ilex paraguariensis, is a species of holly native to subtropical South America in northeastern Argentina, Bolivia, southern Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay...

. It is to a great extent modern, and contains some fine buildings, including a national college, a church, many schools, and a branch of the Agricultural Bank.