It has an area of 32,729 sq. km. with a population of 137,630 inhabitants, of whom 126,900 are Catholic. It comprises 11 parishes, served by 3 diocesan priests and 20 regular clergy; it has 6 male and 9 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1937, p. 632).
The prelature was established by Pope Pius XII with the apostolic constitution Ad maius Christifidelium of 9 Dec. 1933, by separating territory from the dioceses of Lajes and Ponta Grossa, assigning to the new prelature the territories of Palmas, Clevelandia, and Chapecó, with its seat in the city of Palmas, whose church dedicated to the Most Holy Saviour was elevated to the rank of a prelature. The boundaries of the prelature are: to the north the Iguaçu River, to the west the Argentine Republic, to the east the civil boundaries separating Palmas and Chapecó from neighboring municipalities, and to the south the Uruguay River as far as its confluence with the Irany.
The prelature is a suffragan of Curitiba.