Belo Horizonte

Sister cities

• Newark
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• Tripoli
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• Chimbote
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History

The metropolis was once a small village, founded by , a bandeirante explorer from São Paulo. The explorer settled in the region in 1701, leading a gold rush expedition. He then established a farm called "Curral d'el Rey," archaic Portuguese for the "King's Corral". The farm's wealth and success encouraged people from surrounding places to move into the region, and Curral del Rey became a village surrounded by farms. Another important factor contributing to the growth of the village was people immigrating from the São Francisco River region, who had to pass through Curral d'el Rey to reach southern parts of Brazil. Travelers usually visited a small wooden chapel, where they prayed for a safe trip, so the chapel was named Capela da Nossa Senhora da Boa Viagem, which means "Chapel of Our Lady of the Good Journey." After the construction of Belo Horizonte, the old baroque chapel was replaced by a neo-Gothic church that became the city's cathedral. The previous capital of Minas Gerais, Ouro Preto (meaning "black gold," due to dark rocks with gold inside found on the region), originally called "Vila Rica" ("wealthy village"), was a symbol of both the monarchic Brazilian Empire and the period when most of Brazilian income was from the mining industry. That never pleased the members of the Inconfidência Mineira, republican intellectuals who conspired against the Portuguese dominion of Brazil. In 1889 Brazil became a republic, and it was agreed that a new state capital, in tune with a modern and prosperous Minas Gerais, had to be established. In 1893 due to the climatic and topographic conditions, Curral Del Rey was selected by Minas Gerais governor Afonso Pena among other cities as the location for the new economic and cultural center of the state, under the new name of…

Geography

The term "Grande BH" ("Greater Belo Horizonte") denotes any of various definitions for the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte. The legally defined Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte consists of 34 municipalities in total, and a population of around six million inhabitants (, according to Brazil's National Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE)). The intense process of urbanization that is taking place in the metropolitan region has made some of the political boundaries between municipalities in the region obsolete. The city is now composed of a relatively contiguous urban area, centred on Belo Horizonte, which extends out into municipalities such as Contagem, Betim, Nova Lima, Raposos, Ribeirão das Neves, Ibirité, Santa Luzia and Sabará, among others. The municipality is bounded to the north by Vespasiano, to the north east by Santa Luzia, by Sabará to the east, by Nova Lima to the southeast, Brumadinho to the south and Ribeirão das Neves, Contagem and Ibirité to the west. According to the current geographic classification by IBGE, the municipality belongs to the Immediate Geographic Region of Belo Horizonte, in the Intermediate Geographic Region of Belo Horizonte. Belo Horizonte lies on a region of contact between different geological series of the Proterozoic. The geology largely comprises crystalline rocks, which give rise to the varied morphology of the landscape. It is located in a large geological unit known as the craton of São Francisco, referring to extensive crustal nucleus of central-eastern Brazil, tectonically stable at the end of the Paleoproterozoic and bordering areas that suffered the regeneration at the Neoproterozoic. The archean rocks members of Belo Horizonte complex and supracrustal sequences of the Paleoproterozoic is predominant.…

Most-observed species

• Great Kiskadee

  Pitangus sulphuratus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  3,868
• Picazuro Pigeon

  Patagioenas picazuro (Temminck, 1813) · Aves
  3,543
• Bananaquit

  Coereba flaveola (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  3,098
• Ruddy Ground-Dove

  Columbina talpacoti (Temminck, 1810) · Aves
  2,650
• Pale-breasted Thrush

  Turdus leucomelas Vieillot, 1818 · Aves
  2,626
• white-eyed conure

  Aratinga leucophthalma (Statius Muller, 1776) · Aves
  2,592
• Yellow-chevroned Parakeet

  Brotogeris chiriri (Vieillot, 1818) · Aves
  2,554
• Sayaca Tanager

  Thraupis sayaca (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  2,530