Browse / Brazil / Minas Gerais / Três Pontas
Três Pontas
Minas Geraistown
Três Pontas
Total population
55,255
Founded
1768
Demographic figures from IBGE. Overview below cites Wikipedia and may reference a different year.
City facts
Facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Overview
Três Pontas is a municipality located in southern Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The municipality has about 57,000 inhabitants and a population density of 78.12 inhabitants/km2. The road MG-167 is the only paved road that passes through the city, but the Rodovia Fernão Dias (BR-381), is less than 50 km from the city centre passing through Varginha. Almost all streets of the urban zone are paved, and water and sewage services are provided to all residents.
Read more on WikipediaHistory & geography
History
The first inhabitants of the region were runaway slaves who formed two quilombos, followed by colonisers moving from Europe. Although many explorers came looking for gold, the soil in the Três Pontas area has no gold or important mineral resources, so farms were formed to create cattle and grow crops. The chapel of Nossa Senhora d'Ajuda was founded on October 15, 1768, by the Captain Bento Ferreira de Brito. This event is held to be the founding of Três Pontas itself as a permanent settlement - mixing rural and urban characteristics, slowly forming around the chapel. The locality was formally recognised as a village in April 1841. City status was conferred upon the village on July 3, 1857. With the emergence of trade in coffee in the mid-19th century, and with the creation of roads, crops from Três Pontas reached the international market through Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo ports. Coffee has maintained the economy of the city ever since. Três Pontas also had a rail spur, the Trespontana Railroad, which was inaugurated in 1895. The railway was closed in 1964 due to, among other reasons, the flooding of part of the line by the Furnas Dam. The rail terminal site was redeveloped into the City Hall.
Geography
The municipality is bordered to the north with Campos Gerais and Santana da Vargem, to the south by the municipalities of Varginha, Elói Mendes and Paraguaçu, to the east by Nepomuceno and Carmo da Cachoeira, and to the west by Campos Gerais. Três Pontas is about away from Belo Horizonte, the state's capital. According to the map of urban hierarchy produced by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, Três Pontas is classified as a B zone center, which means the city has a restricted influence, only over the smaller cities around it; the Institute says that Três Pontas is under the influence of Varginha, and in turn of Belo Horizonte. The municipality has a wavy relief, with altitudes between above sea level, with the city located at about . However about twenty percent of the municipality is in mountainous regions, in which the height exceeds above sea level. One of these areas is the Serra de Três Pontas (Three Tips Hill), located nineteen kilometers away from the city, where is located the highest point of the municipality, at meters above sea level. The lowest point is located on the margins of the Furnas reservoir, at about above the sea level. Soils in the area are mostly red/yellow oxisols. According to the Brazilian Systems of Soils Classification all (or almost all) oxisols are acidic and nutrient-poor; when adjusted and fertilized these soils become highly productive. According to the Geologic Map of Minas Gerais, the soils in the south portion of the municipality have kianite granulite rocks. In the north, it has rocks of the ortogneissics complexes (ortogneisses granitics, granulite, migmatite and anphibolite). In the region of Três Pontas Mountain the rocks are formed by metapelitic graphitous alternated with quartzite. The climate of…
Excerpted from the corresponding Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA).
Geography
Coordinates & boundaries from the US Census TIGER/Line shapefiles.
Climate
Air quality
Walkability
Amenities nearby
Wildlife & biodiversity
Earthquake history
Photos
Sights & places nearby
Notable people from here
People born within ~10 km, from Wikidata (CC0). Click any name for their Wikipedia article.
Geography & sun
Elevation, sunrise/sunset and daylight from Open-Meteo. Solar climatology from NASA POWER.
Nearby airports
Public attention
Pageview totals from the Wikimedia Pageviews API.
Books about Três Pontas
Search results from Open Library.
Recent natural events nearby
Ground air-quality sensors
Recently spotted species
Events
Gallery
Official Identifiers
IBGE — Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics
- IBGE code
- 3169406
- UF
- MG
- Mesorregião
- Sul/Sudoeste de Minas
- Microrregião
- Varginha
servicodados.ibge.gov.br
Sources
- • Wikipedia
- • Wikidata
- • Open-Meteo / sunrise-sunset.org
- • Wikipedia Pageviews API
- • Open Library
- • Wikidata SPARQL (CC0) — population, area, elevation, inception, head of government, Commons image
- • IBGE — Brazilian national statistics, via servicodados.ibge.gov.br (official municipal code, UF, mesorregião, microrregião, region)
- • IBGE — Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics — servicodados.ibge.gov.br