San Rafael del Parana

San Rafael del Paraná is a town in the northeast of Itapúa department, established as a district in 1978 by separating the colonies of San Rafael, Ape Aimé, and Alborada from the district of Capitán Meza. Its population includes Paraguayans alongside German, Japanese, and Brazilian settler communities. The district is best known for giving its name to the San Rafael Reserve of Manageable Resources (also called San Rafael National Park), a roughly 69,000-hectare block of Alto Paraná Atlantic Forest shared with neighboring Caazapá department in the upper Tebicuary River basin. It is one of the last large remaining fragments of the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest, an ecoregion identified by WWF as one of the world's most important for biodiversity, home to jaguar, puma, ocelot, tapir, and over 300 recorded bird species. The reserve was designated in 1992 and remains largely under private ownership, managed as a resource reserve since 2002. The town itself is a small agricultural settlement. The climate is subtropical; best visited May–September.

By Plane

Teniente Amín Ayub González Airport (ENO) in Encarnación is the nearest airport.

By Train

No passenger rail.

By Car / Road

San Rafael del Paraná is reached by road from Encarnación, to the southwest.

Walkable in town; the San Rafael reserve requires a vehicle and local guidance, as access roads are unpaved and the land is largely privately held.

• San Rafael Reserve of Manageable Resources – A large fragment of Alto Paraná Atlantic Forest sheltering jaguar, puma, ocelot, tapir, and hundreds of bird species; a key site for Atlantic Forest conservation in Paraguay.

• San Pedro del Paraná (west) – Rural town.
• Encarnación (southwest) – Department capital.
• Tomás Romero Pereira (north) – Agricultural settlement.