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Rio de Janerio

Rio de Janerio

State

Rio de Janeiro

Country

Brazil

Continent

South America

Size

1,255 KM2

Population

212,559,417

Spending Budget

$289 - $4,064

Famous For

  • Cristo Redentor
  • Copacabana
  • Maracanã
  • Teatro municipal

Best Time to Visit

  • January
  • February
  • March
  • December

History

The name was given to the city’s original site by Portuguese navigators who arrived on January 1, 1502, and mistook the entrance of the bay for the mouth of a river. When the foundations of the future town were laid in 1565, it was named Cidade de Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro “City of St. Sebastian of Rio de Janeiro” for both Sao Sebastiao and Dom Sebastiao, king of Portugal. Rio de Janeiro became the colonial capital in 1763 and was the capital of independent Brazil from 1822 until 1960, when the national capital was moved to the new city of Brasília: the territory constituting the former Federal District was converted into Guanabara state, which formed an enclave in Rio de Janeiro state. In March 1975 the two states were fused as the state of Rio de Janeiro. The city of Rio de Janeiro became one of the fourteen municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro, or Greater Rio, and was designated the capital of the reorganized state. Despite the loss of the status, funding, and employment it had enjoyed as Brazil’s capital, Rio de Janeiro not only survived but thrived as a commercial and financial centre, as well as a tourist magnet. When Brazil achieved independence in 1889, Rio was named the capital. With years passing by, Rio has changed, in terms of infrastructure and finances. Central Zone was demolished to expand the city. The land was being reclaimed to build the Central Business District. Hills were being wiped out and were used to fill the marsh areas. The city was divided into three zones. North zone became an industrial area along with being the residence of the working sector while the South Zone was limited for the wealthy people. After World War II, Rio shifted from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy. Bridges were built between important cities, skyscrapers were constructed and freeways were developed. The population of the city increased in gigantic proportions and this turned out to be a curse. Even if labour required the industries to develop, labourers were in excess and the number of poor and unskilled people increased. This situation exists even today and puts intense pressure on Rio’s resources. Rio is one of the most populated cities in the world. The state is part of the Mata Atlantica biome and is made up of two distinct morphological areas: a coastal plain, known as Baixa da, and a plateau, which are disposed in parallel fashion from the shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean inland towards Minas Gerais.

Present Day

Rio de Janeiro is also known as Cidade de Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro, by name Rio, city and port, capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is located on the Atlantic Ocean, in the Southeastern part of the tropical zone of South America, and is widely recognized as one of the world’s most beautiful and interesting urban centres. It is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil. It has the second-largest economy in Brazil, with the largest being that of the state of Sao Paulo. Rio de Janeiro is the smallest state in the Southeast macroregion and one of the smallest in Brazil. It is, however, the third most populous Brazilian state. The climate is generally tropical, hot, and humid, the climate of Greater Rio is strongly affected by its topography, its proximity to the ocean, and the shape of the Southern Cone of South America. Along the coast, the breeze, blowing alternately onshore and offshore, modifies the temperature. During autumn and winter by cold fronts advance from Antarctica, which causes frequent weather changes. The highest rainfall rate is found in the urban district of Jardim Botanico more than 63 inches, where nearby coastal mountains trap humid winds from the Atlantic. Annual mean temperatures on the coast are around 23 °C (73 °F), 26 °C in summer and 20 °C in winter. Tropical forests used to cover more than 90% of the territory of Rio, large portions were devastated for urbanization and plantation coffee, sugar cane, preserved areas can be found in the steepest parts of the mountain chains. The state’s tropical coast and river areas are the only remaining habitat of the golden lion tamarin. The city is a centre of leisure for Brazilian and foreign tourists, and people wearing bathing suits can be seen walking in the streets and along the beaches or travelling on the city’s buses. Perhaps at no time is the city’s festive reputation better displayed than during the annual pre-Lenten Carnival it is celebrated in various ways, most famously through the elaborate competition of samba schools comprising thousands of dancers in each school, each of which has composed a new "enredo de samba" (samba script) for the year that is released and popularized by the time Carnaval arrives, thus already recognizable for its lyrics, themes, and rhythms by the energized audience in the bleachers thronging to see the all-night competition of one samba school after another until dawn. In Rio de Janeiro, they celebrate New Year’s Eve unique way it involves the whole city population. Local inhabitants and visitors join in flocking to the ocean to celebrate the night of the year when thanks are given and wishes are made to the goddess of the sea, Iemanja. In honour of her traditional garb, celebrants dress in white and bear gifts like flowers, especially white, and even blancmange. At midnight, beachgoers on the typically hot midsummer night, walk into the surf and cast their flowers and wishes for the coming year on the lapping waves to be carried out to honour the goddess, the tradition says that wishes will turn to reality if the waves take the gifts to the sea, and won’t if the gifts come back to the beach. Rio de Janeiro continues to be the preeminent icon of Brazil in the eyes of many in the world, in reality, its location, architecture, inhabitants, and lifestyle make it highly unique when compared with other Brazilian cities.

Future

Rio De Janeiro member states decided to launch a process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will build upon the Millennium Development Goals. The Conference also adopted ground-breaking guidelines on green economy policies. Governments also decided to establish an intergovernmental process under the General Assembly to prepare options on a strategy for sustainable development financing. Governments also agreed to strengthen the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on several fronts with action to be taken during the 67th session of the General Assembly. Further, also agreed to establish a high-level political forum for sustainable development. Rio de Janeiro also plans to reduce carbon emission, the Rio de Janeiro Low Carbon City Development Program (LCCDP) is a systems approach to low carbon development, including a framework and set of comprehensive requirements to help the city to plan, implement, monitor, and account for low carbon investments and climate change mitigation actions across all sectors in the city over time. Further, the approach of the government on the issue of population growth.
Must Visit Places ------------

Cristo Redentor

The giant statue of Christ overlooking the city from the 709-meter summit of Corcovado is almost as widely recognized a symbol of Rio as the distinctive shape of Sugarloaf. The world-famous landmark was erected between 1922 and 1931, financed almost entirely by contributions from Brazilian Catholics. The Art Deco statue was created by Polish-French sculptor Paul Landowski and built by the Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with the French engineer Albert Caquot. Made of reinforced concrete and soapstone, the figure itself is 30 meters tall with arms stretching 28 meters; it weighs 635 metric tons. Inside its eight-meter-high base is a chapel, where it's not uncommon to find weddings and baptisms taking place. The Corcovado rack railway chugs from Rua do Cosme Velho up the 3.5-kilometer track to the statue, through the Tijuca National Park.

Sugarloaf

Rio de Janeiro's best-known landmark is the rock peak of Sugarloaf, towering 394 meters above the harbor. It sits on a point of land that projects out into the bay and wraps around its harbor, and is connected to the city by a low strip of land. You can take a cable car from Praça General Tibúrcio to the top of the Morro da Urca, a lower peak from which a second cableway runs to the summit of the Sugarloaf. From here, you can see the entire mountainous coast that rings the bay and its islands. Below, the 100-meter Praia da Urca beach is near the location of Rio's original nucleus, between the Morro Cara de Cão and the Sugarloaf. On Cara de Cão are three forts of which the 16th-century, star-shaped Fort São João is open to the public.

Ipanema

Ipanema and Leblon are separated by the Jardim de Alá Canal, which drains the lagoon, Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas. Along the seafront promenade are large hotels, sidewalk cafés, and restaurants. These two districts, although best known for their beaches (one of which was made world-famous by the song The Girl from Ipanema) have a lively cultural life, with art galleries, cinemas, and an avant-garde theater. Praça de Quental in Leblon is the scene of an antiques market every Sunday, and Praca General Osorio hosts the Sunday Feira de Artesanato de Ipanema featuring crafts, music, art, and local foods.

Copacabana

Few cities are blessed with a beautiful sand beach at its heart, let alone one that stretches four kilometers along one entire side of its downtown. A few steps from its golden sands are Avenida Atlântica, Avenida Nossa Senhora de Copacabana, and the neighboring smaller streets where you'll find appealing century-old buildings, fine hotels, and popular restaurants and cafés. The unquestioned monarch of the area, and of Rio hotels, is the renowned Copacabana Palace, built in the 1920s and now protected as a national monument. Featured in the 1933 film Flying Down to Rio and host to royalty and glamorous movie stars, Copacabana Palace recalls the halcyon days of power, wealth, and elegance, when Rio was capital of Brazil.

Carnaval

One of the world's most famous pre-Lenten celebrations - as well-known as those in Venice and New Orleans - takes place each winter in Rio de Janeiro. The celebrations begin shortly after New Year, but the splendor and extravagance reaches its spectacular climax in the four days before Ash Wednesday, attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators to its street parades, samba parties, and shows. Other Brazilian cities celebrate Carnaval; it is also a major tourist event in Bahia and Recife, but Rio's is the most lavish. The most spectacular events are the parades of the samba schools, which are held in a unique venue designed by renowned Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. The Sambódromo is a long parade route lined by stadium-style boxes designed so that up to 50,000 spectators can watch the parades of brilliantly costumed dancers as they compete. The parade route is 700 meters long and 13 meters wide. It was first used in 1984 and updated as a venue for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Tijuca National Park

Tijuca National Park protects the Tijuca Forest and several viewpoints overlooking the city, and surrounds Cristo Redentor, the giant-sized statue of Christ on Corcovado. To explore the park, you can leave the train up to Corcovado at a midpoint and follow the road through the forest. The 3,300-hectare Tijuca Forest, one of the world's largest forests within a city, was planted in the late 1850s on land that had been destroyed by coffee plantations, to safeguard the springs that supplied Rio de Janeiro's water. Most of the trees are native species and provide habitat for Capuchin monkeys, quatis (Brazilian raccoon), colorful toucans, hawks, brilliant blue butterflies, and many other species of wildlife.

Jardim Botânico

Covering 350 acres at the foot of Corcovado, Rio's Jardim Botânico combines an ecological sanctuary with show gardens and a scientific laboratory, all in a beautiful park-like setting. Highlights are the Orchidarium, an iron-and-glass greenhouse built in the 1930s and filled with more than 2,000 species of orchids, and the Japanese Gardens with their cherry trees, wooden bridges, koi ponds, and Bonsai. A Sensory Garden of aromatic plants and herbs is signed in Braille. The garden, which is a UNESCO biosphere reserve, contains more than 8,000 species of plant life and the birds and animals that make this their habitat, including Marmoset monkeys and toucans. You can walk through the gardens, under the soaring royal palms and pau-brasil trees, or ride through on an electric cart tour.

Maracanã

A must-see for football (soccer) fans when a game is scheduled, Brazil's largest stadium was home to the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. It was completely renovated for the FIFA World Cup 2014 and holds more than 78,000 fans. The stadium is used for matches between Rio's major football clubs, the Flamengo, Botafogo, Fluminense, and Vasco da Gama, as well as for concerts. The brief tour would be of interest to avid fans, but others should give it a miss. The shore of Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, near Copacabana and Ipanema, where many other Olympic events took place, is lined by parks and sports clubs, and its waters are popular for regattas and other water sports.

Sao Bento

On the hill just above the harbor are the church and monastery of São Bento, one of the finest Benedictine complexes in Brazil. The original 1617 church was without aisles until it was enlarged in the second half of the 17th century by the addition of eight side chapels. The finest artists of the Benedictine order were involved in decorating the interior. The exuberant carving that covers the walls and ceiling was mainly the work of a monk named Domingos da Conceição, who was also responsible for the figures of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica on the high altar. The choir chapel has silver work by Mestre Valentim and 14 paintings by Ricardo do Pilar, a monk who was the foremost Benedictine painter of colonial Brazil. His masterpiece, Senhor dos Martírios (Christ of the Passion), is in the sacristy of the monastery.

Teatro municipal

The grand Municipal Theater, built in the early 20th century, was inspired by the Paris Opera of Charles Garnier, and its interior is even more ornate and luxurious than the dramatic towered façade. Highlights are the sculptures by Henrique Bernardelli and paintings by Rodolfo Amoedo and Eliseu Visconti, as well as the drop curtain, the proscenium frieze, and the ceilings.