The first wave of Ukrainian immigration to Argentina included 12-14 families from Eastern Galicia (at the time part of Austria-Hungary) in 1897. When the immigrants arrived in the country, the Argentine government sent them to the Misiones Province, where they settled in Apóstoles. Their settlement here was part of the local governor's strategy of building up European immigration in his province as a way of preventing neighboring Brazil's claims on the region. The settlers were granted land allotments of 123.6 acres, or in two identical lots, with one lot being used for agriculture and the other for cattle breeding. Initially, they struggled with adapting to climatic conditions quite different from those of their native Ukraine, and eventually largely switched to tending crops that were appropriate to their new homes, such as sugar cane, rice, tobacco, and especially yerba mate -an Argentinian beverage similar to the tea- as proper crops. Indeed, the first person to grow tea in the province of Misiones was Volodymyr Hnatiuk, a Ukrainian immigrant. Ultimately, at least 10,000 Ukrainians from Galicia settled in Misiones before the onset of World War I. At this time, an estimated 4,000 Ukrainians also settled in Buenos Aires.