Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro
—  Municipality  —
Municipality of Rio de Janeiro Município do Rio de Janeiro
Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado with Sugarloaf Mountain and Guanabara Bay (background)
Flag Coat of arms
Country	Brazil
Region	Southeast
State	Rio de Janeiro
Historic countries	Kingdom of Portugal United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves Empire of Brazil
Settled	1555
Founded	March 1, 1565
Named for	Saint Sebastian Guanabara Bay
Government
- Type	Mayor-council
- Mayor	Eduardo Cavaliere (PSD)
- Vice Mayor	Vacant
Area
- Municipality	1,221 km² (486.5 sq mi)
- Metro	4,539.8 km² (1,759.6 sq mi)
Elevation	2 m (7 ft)
Highest elevation	1,020 m (3,349 ft)
Lowest elevation	0 m (0 ft)
Population (2026)
- Municipality	6,730,729
- Density	5,174.6/km² (13,402.2/sq mi)
- Urban	11,616,000
- Metro	14,023,000 (2nd)
- Metro Density	2,705.1/km² (7,006.2/sq mi)
Time zone	BRT (UTC−3)
Postal Code	20000-001 to 23799-999
Area code(s)	21
Website: en.prefeitura.rio

Rio de Janeiro, also known simply as Rio, is the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the second-most-populous city in Brazil after São Paulo.

Founded in 1565, the city was initially the seat of the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro, a domain of the Portuguese Empire. In 1763, it became the capital of the State of Brazil. In 1808, when the Portuguese Royal Court moved to Brazil, Rio de Janeiro became the seat of the court of Queen Maria I of Portugal. Under the leadership of her son, prince regent John of Braganza, Maria raised Brazil to the dignity of a kingdom within the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarves. Rio remained as the capital of the pluricontinental monarchy until 1822, when the Brazilian War of Independence began. This is one of the few instances in history that the capital of a colonizing country officially shifted to a city in one of its colonies. Rio de Janeiro subsequently served as the capital of the Empire of Brazil, until 1889, and then the capital of republican Brazil until 1960 when the capital was moved to Brasília.

Rio de Janeiro is one of the most visited cities in the Southern Hemisphere and is known for its natural settings, carnival, samba, bossa nova, and beaches such as Barra da Tijuca, Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon. In addition to the beaches, other landmarks include the statue of Christ the Redeemer atop Corcovado mountain, named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World; Sugarloaf Mountain with its cable car; the Sambódromo, a permanent grandstand-lined parade avenue which is used during Carnival; and Maracanã Stadium, one of the world's largest football stadiums.

History

Pre-Cabraline period

The region of Rio was inhabited by the Tupi, Puri, Botocudo, and Maxakalí peoples.

Colonial period

Founding of Rio de Janeiro on 1 March 1565. The painting depicts the Governor General of Brazil, Mem de Sá, presenting the key to the city to the alcaide.

Europeans first encountered Guanabara Bay on January 1, 1502 (hence Rio de Janeiro, "January River"), during a Portuguese expedition under explorer Gaspar de Lemos, captain of a ship in Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet, or under Gonçalo Coelho. Allegedly the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci participated as an observer at the invitation of King Manuel I in the same expedition.

In 1555, one of the islands of Guanabara Bay, now called Villegagnon Island, was occupied by 500 French colonists under the French admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon. Consequently, Villegagnon built Fort Coligny on the island when attempting to establish the France Antarctique colony. Eventually this French settlement became too much of a threat to the established Portuguese colony and in 1560 the order was made to get rid of them. A years-long military aggression was then initiated by the new Governor General of Brazil Mem de Sá, and later continued by his nephew Estácio de Sá. On January 20, 1567, a final defeat was imposed on the French forces and they were decisively expelled from Brazil for good.

Africans were trafficked at Valongo Wharf through the Atlantic slave trade

The city of Rio de Janeiro proper was founded on March 1, 1565 by the Portuguese, led by Estácio de Sá, including Antônio de Mariz. It was named São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, in honor of St. Sebastian, the saint who was the namesake and patron of the Portuguese then-monarch Sebastião. Rio de Janeiro was the name of Guanabara Bay. Until early in the eighteenth century, the city was threatened or invaded by several mostly French pirates and buccaneers, such as Jean-François Duclerc and René Duguay-Trouin.

In the late seventeenth century, Bandeirantes discovered gold and diamonds in the neighboring captaincy of Minas Gerais, thus Rio de Janeiro became a much more practical port for exporting diversified sources of wealth (gold, precious stones, besides the sugar) than Salvador, Bahia, much farther northeast. On January 27, 1763, the colonial administration in Portuguese America was moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. The city remained primarily a colonial capital until 1808, when the Portuguese royal family and most of the associated Lisbon nobles, fleeing from Napoleon's invasion of Portugal, moved to Rio de Janeiro.

Portuguese royal period

View of the bay and the entry of the city of Rio as seen from the terrace of the convent of Santo Antônio, by Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1816)

The kingdom's capital was transferred to the city, which, thus, became the only European capital outside of Europe. In the first decade, several educational establishments were created, such as the Military Academy, the Royal School of Sciences, Arts and Crafts, and the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the National Library of Brazil, and The Botanical Garden. When Brazil was elevated to Kingdom in 1815, it became the capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves until the return of the Portuguese Royal Family to Lisbon in 1821, but remained as capital of the Kingdom of Brazil.

From the colonial period until the first independent era, Rio de Janeiro was a city of slaves. There was a large influx of African slaves to Rio de Janeiro. Between 1811 and 1831, 500,000 to a million slaves arrived in Rio de Janeiro through Valongo Wharf, which is now a World Heritage Site.

Imperial period

Botafogo Bay in 1869

Botafogo Bay in 1889

When Prince Pedro proclaimed the independence of Brazil in 1822, he decided to keep Rio de Janeiro as the capital of his new empire while the place was enriched with sugar cane agriculture in the Campos region and, especially, with the new coffee cultivation in the Paraíba Valley. In order to separate the province from the capital of the Empire, the city was converted in Neutral Municipality in 1834, passing the province of Rio de Janeiro to have Niterói as capital.

As a political center of the country, Rio concentrated the political-partisan life of the Empire. It was the main stage of the abolitionist and republican movements in the last half of the nineteenth century. At that time the number of slaves was drastically reduced and the city was developed, with modern drains, animal trams, train stations crossing the city, gas and electric lighting, telephone and telegraph wiring, water and river plumbing. Rio continued as the capital of Brazil after 1889, when the monarchy was replaced by a republic.

On February 6, 1889 the Bangu Textile Factory was founded, with the name of Industrial Progress Company of Brazil (Companhia Progresso Industrial do Brasil). The factory was officially opened on March 8, 1893, in a complex with varying architectural styles like Italianate, Neo-Gothic and a tower in Mansard Roof style. After the opening in 1893, workers from Great Britain arrived in Bangu to work in the textile factory. The old farms became worker villages with red-bricks houses, and a neo-gothic church was created, which still exists as the Saint Sebastian and Saint Cecilia Parish Church. Street cinemas and cultural buildings also appeared.

In May 1894, Thomas Donohoe, a British worker from Busby, Scotland, arrived in Bangu. Donohoe was amazed to discover that there was absolutely no knowledge of football among Brazilians. So he wrote to his wife, Elizabeth, asking her to bring a football when she joined him. And shortly after her arrival, in September 1894, the first football match in Brazil took place in the field beside the textile factory. It was a five-a-side match between British workers, and took place six months before the first game organized by Charles Miller in São Paulo. However, the Bangu Football Club was not formally created until 1904.

Republican period

Rio de Janeiro, c. 1910s

At the time Brazil's Old Republic was established, the city lacked urban planning and sanitation, which helped spread several diseases, such as yellow fever, dysentery, variola, tuberculosis, and even black death. Pereira Passos, who was named mayor in 1902, imposed reforms to modernize the city, demolishing the cortiços where most of the poor population lived. These people then moved to live in the city's hills, creating the first favelas. Inspired by the city of Paris, Passos built the Municipal Theater, the National Museum of Fine Arts, and the National Library in the city's center; brought electric power to Rio and created larger avenues to adapt the city to automobiles.

Carioca Aqueduct in the 1920s

Until the early years of the twentieth century, the city was largely limited to the neighborhood now known as the historic city center on the mouth of Guanabara Bay. The city's center of gravity began to shift south and west to the so-called Zona Sul (South Zone) in the early part of the twentieth century, when the first tunnel was built under the mountains between Botafogo and the neighborhood that is now known as Copacabana. Expansion of the city to the north and south was facilitated by the consolidation and electrification of Rio's streetcar transit system after 1905. Botafogos natural environment, combined with the fame of the Copacabana Palace Hotel, the luxury hotel of the Americas in the 1930s, helped Rio to gain the reputation it still holds today as a beach party town.

A convoy of M41 Walker Bulldog tanks along the streets of the city in 1968 during the military rule. At the time, Rio de Janeiro was a city-state, capital of Guanabara

Plans for moving the nation's capital city from Rio de Janeiro to the center of Brazil had been occasionally discussed, and when Juscelino Kubitschek was elected president in 1955, it was partially on the strength of promises to build a new capital. Though many thought that it was just campaign rhetoric, Kubitschek managed to have Brasília and a new Federal District built, at great cost, by 1960. On April 21 of that year, the capital of Brazil was officially moved to Brasília. The territory of the former Federal District became its own state, Guanabara, after the bay that borders it to the east, encompassing just the city of Rio de Janeiro. After the 1964 coup d'état that installed a military dictatorship, the city-state was the only state left in Brazil to oppose the military. Then, in 1975, a presidential decree known as "The Fusion" removed the city's federative status and merged it with the State of Rio de Janeiro, with the city of Rio de Janeiro replacing Niterói as the state's capital, and establishing the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region.

Geography

Satellite view of Greater Rio de Janeiro at night seen from ISS

Rio de Janeiro is near the west end of a strip (from Cabo Frio to just east of Ilha Grande) of Brazil's Atlantic coast close to the Tropic of Capricorn where the shoreline is oriented east and west; the city thus faces largely south. It was founded at the entrance to an inlet, Guanabara Bay (Baía de Guanabara), which is marked by a point of land called Sugar Loaf (Pão de Açúcar) – a "calling card" of the city.

Parks

Parque Lage with Corcovado in the background

Arches in the Botanical Garden

Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon

The city has several parks and ecological reserves, including as the Tijuca National Park, the world's first urban forest and UNESCO Environmental Heritage and Biosphere Reserve; Pedra Branca State Park, which houses the highest point of Rio de Janeiro, the peak of Pedra Branca; the Quinta da Boa Vista complex; the Botanical Garden; Rio's Zoo; Parque Lage; and the Passeio Público, the first public park in the Americas. In addition, the Flamengo Park is the largest landfill in the city, extending from the center to the south zone, and containing museums and monuments, in addition to much vegetation.

Since 1961, the Tijuca National Park (Parque Nacional da Tijuca), the largest city-surrounded urban forest and the second largest urban forest in the world, has been a National Park. The largest urban forest in the world is the Floresta da Pedra Branca (White Rock Forest), which is located in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro.

Environment

Due to the high concentration of industries in the metropolitan region, the city has faced serious problems of environmental pollution. The Guanabara Bay has lost mangrove areas and suffers from residues from domestic and industrial sewage, oil, and heavy metals. Although its waters renew when they reach the sea, the bay is the final receiver of all the tributaries generated along its banks and in the basins of the many rivers and streams that flow into it.

The waters of Sepetiba Bay are slowly following the path traced by Guanabara Bay, with sewage being released without treatment in streams or rivers. With regard to industrial pollution, highly toxic wastes, with high concentrations of heavy metals – mainly zinc and cadmium – have been dumped over the years by factories in the industrial districts of Santa Cruz, Itaguaí and Nova Iguaçu.

The Marapendi lagoon and the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon have suffered with the leniency of the authorities and the growth in the number of apartment buildings close by. The illegal discharge of sewage and the consequent deaths of algae diminished the oxygenation of the waters, causing fish mortality.

There are, on the other hand, signs of decontamination in the lagoon made through a public-private partnership established in 2008 to ensure that the lagoon waters will eventually be suitable for bathing. The decontamination actions involve the transfer of sludge to large craters present in the lagoon itself, and the creation of a new direct and underground connection with the sea, which will contribute to increase the daily water exchange between the two environments. However, during the Olympics the lagoon hosted the rowing competitions and there were numerous concerns about potential infection resulting from human sewage.

Climate

Night storm with lightning in Rio de Janeiro, view from Sugarloaf Mountain

Copacabana Beach on a sunny day

Rio has a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen: Aw, Trewartha: Awab borderline Awha), and is often characterized by long periods of heavy rain between December and March. The city experiences hot, humid summers, and warm, sunny winters. In inland areas of the city, temperatures above 40 °C (104 °F) are common during the summer, though rarely for long periods, while maximum temperatures above 27 °C (81 °F) occur regularly every month. Temperature varies according to elevation, distance from the coast, and type of vegetation or land use.

Summers are hot and stormy. Temperatures over 40 °C (104 °F), that may happen throughout the warmer half-year but are much more common during the summer, often mean the actual "feels-like" temperature is over 50 °C (122 °F), when there is little wind and the relative humidity percentage is high. Along the coast, the breeze, blowing onshore and offshore, moderates the temperature. Heavy rain is common in the summer, and these have, on some occasions, provoked catastrophic floods and landslides. The mountainous areas register greater rainfall since they constitute a barrier to the humid wind that comes from the Atlantic.

Winters are warm, and not as rainy. Cold fronts and dawn/morning sea breezes bring mild temperatures, though average temperatures remain above 25 °C (77 °F).

Drought is rare, albeit bound to happen occasionally given the city's strongly seasonal tropical climate. The Brazilian drought of 2014–2015, most severe in the Southeast Region and the worst in decades, affected the entire metropolitan region's water supply (a diversion from the Paraíba do Sul River to the Guandu River is a major source for the state's most populous mesoregion).

Sugarloaf Cable Car approaching the summit

Some areas within Rio de Janeiro state occasionally have falls of snow grains and ice pellets (popularly called granizo) and hail, and roughly in the same suburbs (Nova Iguaçu and surrounding areas, including parts of Campo Grande and Bangu) that correspond to the location of the March 2012, February–March 2013, and January 2015 ice pellet (granizo) falls, there was a tornado-like phenomenon in January 2011, for the first time in the region's recorded history, causing structural damage and long-lasting blackouts, but no fatalities.

Demographics

Since 1960, when it was surpassed by São Paulo, the city of Rio de Janeiro has been the second-most populous city in Brazil.

Ethnic groups

Different ethnic groups contributed to the formation of the population of Rio de Janeiro. Before European colonization, there were at least seven different indigenous peoples speaking 20 languages in the region.

Rio de Janeiro is home to the largest Portuguese population outside of Lisbon in Portugal. After independence from Portugal, Rio de Janeiro became a destination for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Portugal, mainly in the early twentieth century. The immigrants were mostly poor peasants who subsequently found prosperity in Rio as city workers and small traders. The Portuguese cultural influence is still seen in many parts of the city (and many other parts of the state of Rio de Janeiro), including architecture and language.

The black community was formed by residents whose ancestors had been trafficked into slavery, mostly from Angola and Mozambique, as well by people of Angolan, Mozambican, and West African descent who moved to Rio from other parts of Brazil. White in Brazil is defined more by having a European-looking phenotype rather than ancestry, and two full siblings can be of different "racial" categories in a skin color and phenotype continuum from pálido (branco) or fair-skinned, through branco moreno or swarthy Caucasian, mestiço claro or lighter skinned multiracial, pardo (mixed race) to negro or black. Pardo, for example, in popular usage includes those who are caboclos (mestizos), mulatos (mulattoes), cafuzos (zambos), juçaras (archaic term for tri-racials) and westernized Amerindians (which are called caboclos as well), being more of a skin color rather than a racial group in particular.

As a result of the influx of immigrants to Brazil from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, also found in Rio de Janeiro and its metropolitan area are communities of Levantine Arabs who are mostly Christian or irreligious, Spaniards, Italians, Germans, and Japanese.

Religion

Religion in Rio de Janeiro is diverse, with Catholic Christianity being the majority religion while many Protestant denominations coexist in the city.

Christ the Redeemer

Rio de Janeiro has had a rich and influential Catholic tradition. The Rio de Janeiro Cathedral was inaugurated in 1979, in the central region of the city. Its installations have a collection of great historical and religious value: the Archdiocesan Museum of Sacred Art and the Archdiocesan Archive. In a Contemporary architecture, it has a conical shape, with 96 meters of internal diameter and capacity to receive up to 20 thousand faithful. The splendor of the building, with straight and sober lines, is due to the changing stained glass windows carved on the walls up to the dome. Its design and execution was coordinated by Monsignor Ivo Antônio Calliari (1918–2005). Saint Sebastian is recognized as the city's patron saint, which is why it received the canonical name of "Saint Sebastian of Rio de Janeiro."

Afro-Brazilian religions such as Umbanda and Candomblé find support in various social segments, although professed by less than 2% of the population. Many Cariocas simultaneously observe those practices with Roman Catholicism.

Presbyterian Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, the Metropolitan See of its respective Ecclesiastical Province, belongs to the Regional Episcopal Council Leste I of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) (headquartered in Rio until 1977).

The city is home to various Protestant or reformed denominations, exemplified by the Presbyterian, Congregational, Lutheran and Anglican churches. There are also evangelical churches such as the Baptist, Methodist, Seventh-day Adventist churches, and those of Pentecostal origin: Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Assembly of God, Christian Congregation in Brazil, Foursquare Gospel, House of Blessing, God is Love Pentecostal Church, Christian Maranatha, and New Life.

Education

The Portuguese language is the official and national language, and thus the primary language taught in schools. English and Spanish are also part of the official curriculum. There are also international schools, such as the American School of Rio de Janeiro, Our Lady of Mercy School, SIS Swiss International School, the Corcovado German School, the Lycée Français and the British School of Rio de Janeiro.

The city has several universities and research institutes. The most prestigious university is the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Some notable higher education institutions are Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ); Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO); Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ); Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ, often nicknamed Rural); Fluminense Federal University (UFF); Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio); Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV); Military Institute of Engineering (IME); Superior Institute of Technology in Computer Science of Rio de Janeiro (IST-Rio); College of Publicity and Marketing (ESPM); The Brazilian Center for Research in Physics (CBPF); National Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA); Superior institute of Education of Rio de Janeiro (ISERJ) and Federal Center of Technological Education Celso Suckow da Fonseca (CEFET/RJ).

Primary schools are largely under municipal administration, while the state plays a more significant role in the extensive network of secondary schools. There are also a small number of schools under federal administration, such as Pedro II School, Colégio de Aplicação da UFRJ, and the Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica of Rio de Janeiro (CEFET-RJ). In addition, Rio has an ample offering of private schools that provide education at all levels.

Housing

Rocinha, the largest slum (favela) in Brazil

There are significant disparities between the rich and the poor in Rio de Janeiro, and different socioeconomic groups are largely segregated into different neighborhoods. Although the city clearly ranks among the world's major metropolises, large numbers live in slums known as favelas, where the large majority of the population are poor, compared to less than half in the general population.

There have been a number of government initiatives to counter this problem, from the removal of the population from favelas to housing projects such as Cidade de Deus to the more recent approach of improving conditions in the favelas and bringing them up to par with the rest of the city, as was the focus of the "Favela Bairro" program and deployment of Pacifying Police Units.

Politics

Municipal government

Pedro Ernesto Palace, in Cinelândia, seat of Municipal Council

In Rio de Janeiro, the executive power is represented by the mayor and the cabinet of secretaries, in accordance with the model proposed by the Federal Constitution. The Organic Law of the Municipality and the current Master Plan, however, stipulate that the public administration must provide the population with effective tools for the exercise of participatory democracy. In this way, the city is divided into subprefectures, each of which is headed by a sub-mayor appointed directly by the mayor. There are also municipal councils, which complement the legislative process.

Legislative power is constituted by the municipal council, composed of 51 councilors elected for four-year terms (in compliance with the provisions of article 29 of the Constitution, which disciplines a minimum number of 42 and a maximum of 55 for municipalities with more than five million inhabitants). It is up to the House to prepare and vote on fundamental laws for the administration and the Executive, especially the participatory budget (Lei de Diretrizes Orçamentárias). Although the veto power is granted to the mayor, the process of voting on the laws that oppose him usually generates conflicts between the Executive and the Legislative.

State government

Guanabara Palace, seat of the state government

Tiradentes Palace, seat of the Legislative Assembly

As the capital of the homonymous state, the city is the seat of the state government. The Guanabara Palace (formerly known as Paço Isabel) is located in the Laranjeiras neighborhood, in the south zone, and is the official seat of the Rio de Janeiro executive power. Not to be confused with Palácio Laranjeiras, situated in the same neighborhood, which is the official residence of the governor of Rio de Janeiro.

The Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (ALERJ) is the state legislative body and is headquartered at Tiradentes Palace, where the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil previously functioned.

Federal government

The city of Rio de Janeiro was successively the capital of the Portuguese colony of the State of Brazil (1621–1815), after the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves (1815–1822), the Empire of Brazil (1822–1889) and from the Republic of the United States of Brazil (1889–1968) until 1960, when the seat of government was definitively transferred to the then newly built Brasília.

Despite the change in the federal capital, over half of the civil servants in the Executive Branch of federal agencies and public companies remained in the city. Rio de Janeiro is also the only Brazilian state where the number of federal employees exceeds the number of state employees. About a third of all federal public bodies and companies remain in the former capital, with 50 public offices, including agencies, autarchies, foundations, and public companies, such as the National Library, the National Nuclear Energy Commission, Fiocruz, BNDES, Petrobras, Eletrobras, IBGE, Casa da Moeda, the National Archives, among others.

Subdivisions

The official political division of the municipality takes into account historical-cultural characteristics to divide the neighborhoods. Subprefectures are officially grouped into four regions (or "zones"), taking into account geographic position and occupation history; however these do not have any administrative or political power over the municipality. The city is commonly divided into the historic center (Centro); the tourist-friendly wealthier South Zone (Zona Sul); the residential less wealthy North Zone (Zona Norte); peripheries in the West Zone (Zona Oeste), among them Santa Cruz, Campo Grande and the wealthy newer Barra da Tijuca district. Rio de Janeiro is administratively divided into 33 distritos (districts) named Regiões Administrativas ("Administrative Regions") and 166 bairros (neighborhoods).

Centro or Downtown is the historic core of the city, as well as its financial and commercial center. Sites of interest include the Paço Imperial, built during colonial times to serve as a residence for the Portuguese governors of Brazil; many historic churches, such as the Candelária Church (the former cathedral), São Jose, Santa Lucia, Nossa Senhora do Carmo, Santa Rita, São Francisco de Paula, and the monasteries of Santo Antônio and São Bento. The Centro also houses the modern concrete Rio de Janeiro Cathedral. Around the Cinelândia square, there are several landmarks of the Belle Époque of Rio, such as the Municipal Theater and the National Library building. Among its several museums, the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (National Museum of Fine Arts) and the Museu Histórico Nacional (National Historical Museum) are the most important.

The Cultural Corridor in Rio's City Center is home to one of the most architecturally and historically preserved districts, known as the Sociedade de Amigos das Adjacências da Rua da Alfândega (SAARA). This association was formed by merchants operating near Rua da Alfândega in the Historic Center of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The area is renowned for its stores specializing in popular home goods and fabrics, housed within several historic buildings. The name comes from the occupation of the region by Muslim, Jewish, and Maronite Christian immigrants from the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century, for commercial purposes. The region preserves examples of various architectural styles, from Portuguese colonial, through Neoclassical, Eclectic, Art Deco, and Modernism, making the region a rich tapestry of historical architecture that refers to the city's colonial and imperial past.

Aerial view of Fort Copacabana, with Copacabana (right) and Ipanema (left, background)

Barra da Tijuca with Pedra da Gávea in background

The South Zone (Zona Sul) is composed of several districts, among which are São Conrado, Leblon, Ipanema, Arpoador, Copacabana, and Leme, which compose Rio's Atlantic beach coastline. The neighborhood of Copacabana beach hosts one of the world's most spectacular New Year's Eve parties ("Reveillon"), as more than two million revelers crowd onto the sands to watch the fireworks display. Since 2001, the fireworks have been launched from boats, to improve the safety of the event.

The North Zone (Zona Norte) begins at Grande Tijuca (the middle class residential and commercial bairro of Tijuca), just west of the city center, and sprawls for miles inland until Baixada Fluminense and the city's Northwest. This region is home to the Maracanã (located in Grande Tijuca), once the world's highest capacity football venue, able to hold nearly 199,854 people, as it did for the World Cup final between Uruguay and Brazil in 1950. This region is also home to most of the samba schools of Rio de Janeiro such as Mangueira, Salgueiro, Império Serrano, Unidos da Tijuca, and Imperatriz Leopoldinense. Some of the main neighborhoods of Rio's North Zone are Alto da Boa Vista which shares the Tijuca Rainforest with the South and Southwest Zones; Tijuca, Vila Isabel, Méier, São Cristovão, Madureira, Penha, Manguinhos, Fundão, Olaria among others. Many of Rio de Janeiro's slums (favelas), are located in the North Zone.

West Zone (Zona Oeste) of Rio de Janeiro is a vaguely defined area that covers some 50 percent of the city's entire area, including Barra da Tijuca and Recreio dos Bandeirantes neighborhoods. The West Side of Rio has many historic sites because of the old "Royal Road of Santa Cruz" that crossed the territory in the regions of Realengo, Bangu, and Campo Grande, finishing at the Royal Palace of Santa Cruz in the Santa Cruz region. The highest peak of the city of Rio de Janeiro is the Pedra Branca Peak (Pico da Pedra Branca) inside the Pedra Branca State Park. It has an altitude of 1024m. The Pedra Branca State Park (Parque Estadual da Pedra Branca) is the biggest urban state park in the world comprising 17 neighborhoods in the west side, being a "giant lung" in the city with trails, waterfalls, and historic constructions like an old aqueduct in the Colônia Juliano Moreira in the neighborhood of Taquara and a dam in Camorim.

On September 9, 2025, many neighborhoods in the former West Zone were set apart to create the Southwest Zone (Zona Sudoeste): Anil, Barra da Tijuca, Camorim, Cidade de Deus, Curicica, Freguesia, Gardênia Azul, Grumari, Itanhangá, Jacarepaguá, Joá, Praça Seca, Pechincha, Rio das Pedras, Recreio dos Bandeirantes, Tanque, Taquara, Vargem Grande, Vargem Pequena, and Vila Valqueire.

Economy

Headquarters building of Petrobras

Downtown Rio, in the financial district of the city

Botafogo with the Sugarloaf Mountain

Barra da Tijuca

Rio de Janeiro is home to the headquarters of major Brazilian oil, mining, and telecommunications companies, including two of the country's largest corporations, Petrobras and Vale, and Latin America's largest telemedia conglomerate, Grupo Globo. The home of many universities and institutes, it is the second-largest center of research and development in Brazil.

Benefiting from the federal capital position it had for a long period (1763–1960), the city became a dynamic administrative, financial, commercial, and cultural center. Rio de Janeiro became an attractive place for companies to locate when it was the capital of Brazil, as important sectors of society and of the government were present in the city. The city was chosen as headquarters for state-owned companies such as Petrobras, Eletrobras, Caixa Econômica Federal, National Economic and Social Development Bank and Vale (which was privatized in the 1990s). The Rio de Janeiro Stock Exchange (BVRJ), which currently trades only government securities, was the first stock exchange founded in Brazil in 1845.

The off-shore oil exploration in the Campos Basin began in 1968 and became the main site for oil production of Brazil. This caused many oil and gas companies to be based in Rio de Janeiro, such as the Brazilian branches of Shell, EBX and Esso. For many years Rio was the second largest industrial hub of Brazil, with oil refineries, shipbuilding industries, steel, metallurgy, petrochemicals, cement, pharmaceutical, textile, processed foods and furniture industries.

Major international pharmaceutical companies have their Brazilian headquarters in Rio such as: Merck, Roche, Arrow, Darrow, Baxter, Mayne, and Mappel.

Recent decades have seen a sharp transformation in its economic profile, which is becoming more and more one of a major national hub of services and businesses. The city is the headquarters of large telecom companies, such as Intelig, Oi and Embratel. Major Brazilian entertainment and media organizations are based in Rio de Janeiro like Organizações Globo and also some of Brazil's major newspapers: Jornal do Brasil, O Dia, and Business Rio.

Tourism and entertainment are other key aspects of the city's economic life. The city is the nation's top tourist attraction for both Brazilians and foreigners.

In Greater Rio, which has one of the highest per capita incomes in Brazil, retail trade is substantial. Many of the most important retail stores are located in the center, but others are scattered throughout the commercial areas of the other districts, where shopping centers, supermarkets, and other retail businesses handle a large volume of consumer trade.

Tourism

Ipanema beach

Rio de Janeiro is Brazil's primary tourist attraction and resort. Attractions in the city include approximately 80 kilometers of beaches, Corcovado and Sugarloaf mountains, and the Maracanã Stadium. Rio de Janeiro is an international hub of highly active and diverse nightlife with bars, dance bars and nightclubs staying open well past midnight.

While the city had in past had a thriving tourism sector, the industry entered a decline in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The fact that Brasília replaced Rio de Janeiro as the Brazilian capital in 1960 and that São Paulo replaced Rio as the country's commercial, financial and main cultural center during the mid-twentieth century, has also been cited as a leading cause of the decline. Rio de Janeiro's government has since undertaken to modernize the city's economy, reduce its chronic social inequalities, and improve its commercial standing as part of an initiative for the regeneration of the tourism industry.

Infrastructure

Public transportation

Rio de Janeiro's public transportation modes include city buses, coach buses, BRT, metro, suburban rail, light rail, ferries, inclined elevators, vans, and a cable car.

Buses

Transcarioca Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)

Coach bus used for local intracity service

Most conventional bus routes are operated by 28 private companies divided into 4 consortiums, though 3 routes are run by the city government. Although most buses are conventional city buses, there are also a handful of coach buses used for local intracity service with more expensive fares.

The Bus Rapid Transit system consists of 31 lines running along 4 corridors with a wide variety of service patterns: Transbrasil, Transcarioca, Transolímpica and Transoeste. The system is run by the municipal government through Mobi-Rio, which is a state-owned enterprise.

In addition to buses, Rio de Janeiro also has an extensive system of vans used for public transport. This mode can more effectively traverse the steep, narrow and winding roads common in many favelas than buses and is often a lifeline for them. However, most vans are run by criminal organizations, particularly police militias, which use their fares as a major source of revenue: Of the approximately 10,000 vans used for public transport in the city, only 2,000 are legal.

Rio de Janeiro also has intercity, interstate and international bus lines. Most long-distance bus lines run to Novo Rio Bus Terminal at the edge of the Zona Central. Long-distance buses also run to bus stations in Campo Grande and Barra da Tijuca.

Urban rail

Train of Rio de Janeiro Metro

Urban train from SuperVia

Rio de Janeiro Light Rail

Santa Teresa Tram

Rio de Janeiro nominally has three metro lines, though two of them (Lines 1 and 4) are operationally run as a single line. The system runs on 58 kilometers (36 mi) of track and has 41 stations. Line 1/4 runs from Uruguai/Tijuca station in Tijuca to Jardim Oceânico/Barra da Tijuca station in Barra da Tijuca; Line 2 runs from Pavuna station in Pavuna to Botafogo station in Botafogo. Line 1/4 and Line 2 share tracks between Central do Brasil and Botafogo.

The city also has a suburban rail system operated by SuperVia that connects the city of Rio with other locations in Greater Rio de Janeiro. It has 8 lines on 270 kilometers (168 mi) of track with 103 stations in 12 municipalities; Rio de Janeiro municipality itself has 127 kilometers (79 mi) of track with 59 stations on 5 lines. The Deodoro Line runs from Central do Brasil to Deodoro via Maracanã, Méier and Madureira; the Santa Cruz Line runs from Central do Brasil to Santa Cruz, running parallel to the Deodoro line for its entire length and then via Realengo, Bangu and Campo Grande; the Japeri Line shares tracks with the Santa Cruz Line between Central do Brasil and Deodoro before continuing on to Japeri via Anchieta, Nilópolis, Mesquita, Nova Iguaçu and Queimados; the Belford Roxo and Saracuruna Lines run parallel to the Deodoro, Santa Cruz and Japeri Lines between Central do Brasil and Maracanã, with the Belford Roxo Line continuing on to Belford Roxo via Madureira, Pavuna and São João de Meriti and the Saracuruna Line continuing on to Duque de Caxias via Bonsucesso, Ramos and Penha.

The Rio de Janeiro Light Rail is a modern light rail system that runs entirely within the Zona Central on 28 kilometers (17 mi) of track with 30 stations distributed along 4 heavily interlined lines: Line 1 runs from Santos Dumont Airport to Gentileza Intermodal Terminal via Carioca, the Port of Rio de Janeiro and Novo Rio Bus Terminal; Line 2 runs from Praça XV to Praia Formosa via Praça Tiradentes, Central do Brasil, and Novo Rio Bus Terminal; Line 3 runs from Santos Dumont Airport to Central do Brasil via Carioca and Pequena África; Line 4 shares track with Line 2 for almost its entire route, but stops at Gentileza Intermodal Terminal instead of Praia Formosa. The trams are the first in the world to use a combination of ground-level power supply (APS) and on-board supercapacitor energy storage (SRS), in order to eliminate overhead lines along the entire route.

The Santa Teresa Tram runs from Carioca to Santa Teresa and is the oldest operating electric tramway in Latin America, having commenced electric operation in 1896, replacing horse-drawn trams and extending the route. At this time the gauge was altered so that the trams would fit on top of Carioca Aqueduct. It was designated a national historic monument in 1985. After a derailment occurred on August 27, 2011, which left six dead, tram service was suspended to improve the system. The elderly tramcars, which dated from the 1950s, were retired and replaced with newly built replicas that have the appearance of the old fleet but with new mechanical equipment and additional safety features. The line's track was also rebuilt, and after some delays, about one-third of the line reopened in July 2015. More sections reopened later in stages, following repair of additional sections of track. The main section of the line was restored to its full pre-2011 in January 2019.

Ferries

Rio de Janeiro ferry

Rio de Janeiro has ferry routes running radially out from Praça XV in the city center to Praça Araribóia (in Niterói's city center), Charitas (in the South side of Niterói), Cocotá (on Governador Island) and Paquetá Island. All four ferry routes run entirely through Guanabara Bay. The Praça XV-Praça Araribóia route is by far the busiest and carries commuters from Niterói, São Gonçalo, Itaboraí, and Maricá.

Inclined elevators

Pavão-Pavãozinho Inclined Elevator

Rio de Janeiro has 8 public inclined elevators climbing 5 hills, all of which are run by the municipal government through the Municipal Energy and Illumination Company (RioLuz). The Santa Marta Inclined Elevator runs up Dona Marta Hill in two sections with 5 total stations. The Pavão-Pavãozinho Inclined Elevator runs from General Osório/Ipanema station to Cantagalo-Pavão-Pavãozinho and consists of a single line with 5 stations. The Penna Church Inclined Elevator runs from Jacarepaguá to Our Lady of Penna Church at the top of Penna Hill. The Father Laércio Dias de Moura Inclined Elevator is a group of three inclined elevators that connect Penha station to Vila Cruzeiro and the Basilica of Our Lady of Penha.

Roads

Rio-Niterói Bridge

Linha Vermelha

Avenida Brasil (Brazil Avenue) is the longest and busiest highway in Rio de Janeiro, stretching 58 kilometers (36 mi) from the Port area in the city center through the North side to Santa Cruz in the West side. Almost the entire highway is part of BR-101, which continues east along the Rio-Niterói Bridge towards Vitória, Salvador and Recife and west through Itaguaí towards Santos, Curitiba and Florianópolis. Shorter sections of Avenida Brasil are also part of BR-040 (which runs from the Rio de Janeiro Port area to Petrópolis, Belo Horizonte, and Brasília), BR-116 (which runs northeast from Rio de Janeiro to Teresópolis, Vitória da Conquista and Fortaleza and northwest to São Paulo, Curitiba and Porto Alegre) and BR-465 (which runs from the neighbourhood of Campo Grande to Seropédica). Avenida Brasil is a critical freight corridor and bottleneck, particularly for the Port of Rio de Janeiro. The 26 kilometers (16 mi) long Transbrasil BRT runs in the middle of Avenida Brasil from Gentileza Intermodal Terminal to Deodoro station.

The Rio-Niterói Bridge is a 13 kilometers (8 mi) long box girder bridge that runs between the Port of Rio de Janeiro and the Porto de Niterói via Mocanguê Island. The bridge, which is part of BR-101, is the only direct road connection between the east and west sides of Guanabara Bay and is therefore a critical traffic bottleneck. Most of the bridge is 60 meters (197 ft) above the water, with the central span rising to 72 meters (236 ft) to allow for large ships to pass.

The Linha Amarela (Yellow Line) highway, officially Avenida Governador Carlos Lacerda, runs 17 kilometers (11 mi) from Fundão Island to Barra da Tijuca via Del Castilho, Méier and Jacarepaguá. It is maintained by LAMSA (Linha Amarela S.A.), which is owned by Invepar, and is one of two tolled roads within city limits.It runs entirely parallel to the Transcarioca BRT.

The Linha Vermelha (Red Line), officially Via Expressa Presidente João Goulart or RJ-071, is a 22 kilometers (14 mi) long highway that runs from Cidade Nova to São João de Meriti via Fundão Island, Galeão International Airport and Duque de Caxias, entirely parallel to Avenida Brasil.

Pedestrian infrastructure in Rio de Janeiro

Bike Rio rental station in Mauá Square, Downtown Rio

Rio de Janeiro has 601 kilometers (373 mi) of limited-access roads, 731 kilometers (454 mi) of arterial roads, 1,245 kilometers (774 mi) of collector roads and 6,678 kilometers (4,150 mi) of local roads with vehicular traffic.

Despite being in the Atlantic Forest, Rio de Janeiro has a severe lack of street trees, and the distribution of the trees that do exist is highly unequal: poorer neighborhoods in the North side of the city are disproportionately likely to lack tree cover, as are neighborhoods with higher populations of pardo and black people. This causes poorer neighborhoods to suffer from more extreme weather, including more severe flooding and higher temperatures.

Despite Rio de Janeiro's ample sidewalk coverage, many sidewalks are narrow, inaccessible for disabled people, and filled with obstacles. Traffic lights frequently prioritize vehicular traffic on busy roads significantly more than pedestrian traffic, which can significantly increase pedestrian travel times. Portuguese pavement, which is common in Rio de Janeiro, is extremely slippery in the rain and gets easily damaged by tree roots, which further harms pedestrian accessibility. The city has pedestrian zones in the city center, Paquetá Island and concentrated around the suburban rail stations in Bangu, Campo Grande and Penha, as well as in favelas.

The city has a bicycle sharing system called Bike Rio.

Airports

The city of Rio de Janeiro is served by the following airports:

Rio de Janeiro/Galeão International Airport

• Galeão–Antônio Carlos Jobim International Airport: used for all international and most domestic flights. This airport is connected to local and intercity buses and the TransCarioca and TransBrasil BRTs.
• Santos Dumont Airport: used mainly for services to São Paulo, some short and medium-haul domestic flights, and general aviation. The airport is connected to the city's light rail system, which connects it to several other transport modes in the city center.
• Jacarepaguá-Roberto Marinho Airport: used by general aviation and home to the Aeroclube do Brasil (Brasil Flying club). It also has some short-haul commercial flights. The airport is located in the district of Baixada de Jacarepaguá and is connected to the TransCarioca and TransOlímpica BRTs.

Military airports include:

• Galeão Air Force Base: A Brazilian Air Force airbase, sharing some facilities with Galeão - Antônio Carlos Jobim International Airport;
• Santa Cruz Air Force Base: A Brazilian Air Force airbase. Formerly called Bartolomeu de Gusmão Airport, it was built by the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin. Today it is one of the most important Air Force Bases in Brazil;
• Afonsos Air Force Base: One of the historical Brazilian Air Force airbases. It is also the location of the University of the Air Force (Universidade da Força Aérea), the Museu Aeroespacial, and where air shows take place.

Ports

Port of Rio de Janeiro

Ilha d'Água Terminal

The Port of Rio de Janeiro is Brazil's tenth busiest publicly-owned port in terms of cargo volume, and it is the main port for cruise vessels. Located in the Zona Central and on the west coast of Guanabara Bay, it primarily serves the Southeastern states of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Espírito Santo.

In addition to the Port of Rio de Janeiro, the city also has ten private port facilities, nine of which are on Guanabara Bay and one of which is on Baía de Sepetiba.

Water and sewage

The water supply of Rio de Janeiro and the Baixada Fluminense is sourced through the interconnected Guandu, Ribeirão das Lajes and Acari water supply systems. The Guandu water supply system, which uses water diverted from the Paraíba do Sul and Piraí Rivers to the Guandu River, includes the largest water treatment plant in the world. The Ribeirão das Lajes system uses water diverted from the Piraí River (but not the Paraíba do Sul River) to the Ribeirão das Lajes River. The Acari system uses five raw water collection points in the Tinguá Biological Reserve. Rio de Janeiro's water security is threatened by its dependence on a single source, climate change, and raw water pollution, particularly in the Guandu River.

Paquetá Island, unlike the rest of Rio de Janeiro City, has its water supplied from the Imunana-Laranjal water supply system, which uses water sourced from the Macacu and Guapiaçú Rivers and also supplies the Leste Fluminense.

Culture

Museum of Modern Art

National Museum of Fine Arts

Rio de Janeiro is a main cultural hub in Brazil. Its architecture embraces churches and buildings dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, blending with the world-renowned designs of the twentieth century. Rio was home to the Portuguese Imperial family and capital of the country for many years, and was influenced by Portuguese, English, and French architecture.

Rio de Janeiro has inherited a strong cultural role from the past. In the late nineteenth century, there were sessions held of the first Brazilian film and since then, several production cycles have spread out, eventually placing Rio at the forefront of experimental and national cinema. The Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival has been held annually since 1999.

Major international films set in Rio de Janeiro include Blame it on Rio; the James Bond film Moonraker; the Oscar award-winning, critically acclaimed Central Station by Walter Salles, who is also one of Brazil's best-known directors; and the Oscar award-winning historical drama, Black Orpheus, which depicted the early days of Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro.

Rio has many important cultural landmarks, such as the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library), one of the largest libraries in the world with collections totaling more than 9 million items; the Theatro Municipal; the National Museum of Fine Arts; the Carmen Miranda Museum; the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden; the Parque Lage; the Quinta da Boa Vista; the Imperial Square; the Brazilian Academy of Letters; the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro; and the Natural History Museum.

Literature

National Library of Brazil

Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading

After Brazilian independence from Portugal in 1822, Rio de Janeiro quickly developed a European-style bourgeois cultural life, including numerous newspapers, in which most nineteenth-century novels were initially published in serial form. Joaquim Manuel de Macedo's A Moreninha (1844) was perhaps the first successful novel in Brazil and inaugurates a recurrent nineteenth-century theme: a romantic relationship between idealistic young people in spite of cruelties of social fortune.

Romantic and realist modes both flourished through the late nineteenth century and often overlapped within works. The first notable work of realism focusing on the urban lower-middle class is Manuel Antônio de Almeida's Memórias de um sargento de milícias (1854), which presents a series of picaresque scenes, and evokes the transformation of a town into a city with suggestive nostalgia.

Machado de Assis, from Rio de Janeiro, is considered the founder of Realism in Brazil, with the publication of The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas in 1881.

The Biblioteca Nacional (National Library of Brazil) ranks as one of the largest libraries in the world, and the largest in Latin America. Located in Cinelândia, the National Library was originally created by the King of Portugal, in 1810. As with many of Rio de Janeiro's cultural monuments, the library was originally off-limits to the general public. The most valuable collections in the library include: items donated by Barbosa Machado including a precious collection of rare brochures detailing the History of Portugal and Brazil; items from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that were previously owned by Antônio de Araújo de Azevedo, the "Count of Barca," including the 125-volume set of prints "Le Grand Théâtre de l'Univers;" a collection of documents regarding the Jesuítica Province of Paraguay and the "Region of Prata;" and the Teresa Cristina Maria Collection, donated by Emperor Pedro II.

The Real Gabinete Português de Leitura (Portuguese Royal Reading Library) is located at Rua Luís de Camões, in the Centro (Downtown). The institution was founded in 1837 by a group of forty-three Portuguese immigrants, political refugees, to promote culture among the Portuguese community in the then capital of the Empire.

Music

Tom Jobim in 1972. Considered one of the great exponents of Brazilian music, Jobim internationalized bossa nova and, with the help of important American artists.

The official song of Rio de Janeiro is "Cidade Maravilhosa", which means "marvelous city." The song is considered the civic anthem of Rio, and is always the favorite song during Rio's Carnival in February. Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are considered the center of the urban music movement in Brazil.

Rio was popularized by the hit song "The Girl from Ipanema", composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes and recorded by Astrud Gilberto and João Gilberto, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald. It is also the main key song of the bossa nova, a music genre born in Rio. A genre unique to Rio and Brazil as a whole is Funk Carioca. While samba music continues to act as the national unifying agent in Rio, Funk Carioca found a strong community following in Brazil. With its genesis in the 1970s as the modern black pop music from the United States, it evolved in the 1990s to describe a variety of electronic music associated with the current US black music scene, including hip hop, modern soul, and house music.

Theater

Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro's Theatro Municipal is one of the most attractive buildings in the central area of the city. Home of one of the largest stages in Latin America and one of Brazil's best-known venues for opera, ballet, and classical music, the building was inspired by the Palais Garnier, home of the Paris Opera. Construction of the Theatro Municipal began in 1905 following designs of the architect Francisco Pereira Passos. The statues on the top, of two women representing Poetry and Music, are by Rodolfo Bernardelli, and the interior is rich with furnishings and fine paintings. Inaugurated in 1909, the Teatro Municipal has close to 1,700 seats. Its interior includes turn of the century stained glass from France, ceilings of rose-colored marble and a 1,000 pound crystal bead chandelier surrounded by a painting of the "Dance of the Hours." The exterior walls of the building are dotted with inscriptions bearing the names of famous Brazilians as well as many other international celebrities.

Cidade das Artes (City of Arts) is a cultural complex in Barra da Tijuca in the Southwest Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Formally known as "Cidade da Música" (City of Music), it was inaugurated at the beginning of 2013. The project hosts the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra with the largest modern concert hall in South America. The complex also features a chamber music hall, three theaters, and 12 rehearsal rooms. From the terrace there is a panoramic view of the zone. The building was designed by the French architect Christian de Portzamparc and construction was funded by the city of Rio de Janeiro.

A series of covered theaters collectively known as Lona Cultural, administered by the city's Municipal Secretary of Culture, serve throughout the city as venues for cultural activities such as concerts, plays, workshops, art and craft fairs, and courses.

Events

New Year's Eve fireworks at Copacabana Beach

Every December 31, 2.5 million people gather at Copacabana Beach to celebrate New Year's in Rio de Janeiro. The crowd, mostly dressed in white, celebrates all night at the hundreds of different shows and events along the beach. It is the second-largest celebration only next to the Carnival. People celebrate the New Year by sharing chilled champagne. It is considered good luck to shake the champagne bottle and spray around at midnight. In January 2026, Rio de Janeiro was awarded the Guinness world record for the largest New Year's Eve celebration by a city.

A float at Rio Carnival

Rio Carnival is an annual celebration in the Roman Catholic tradition that allows merry-making and red meat consumption before the more sober 40 days of Lent penance which culminates with Holy or Passion Week and Easter. The tradition of Carnival parades was probably influenced by the French or German courts and the custom was brought by the Portuguese or Brazilian Imperial families who had French and Austrian German ancestors. Up until the time of the marchinhas, the revelry was more of a Caucasian-led event. The influence of the African-Brazilian drums and music became more noticeable from the first half of the twentieth century.

Rio de Janeiro has many Carnival choices, including the samba school (Escolas de Samba) parades in the sambadrome exhibition center and the popular blocos de carnaval, street revelry, which parade in almost every corner of the city. In 1840, the first Carnival was celebrated with a masked ball. As years passed, adorned floats and costumed revelers became a tradition among the celebrants. Carnival is known as a historic root of Brazilian music.

Sports

Maracanã Stadium

As in the rest of Brazil, association football is the most popular sport. Rio de Janeiro was one of the host cities of the 1950 and 2014 FIFA World Cups, for which on both occasions Brazil was the host nation.

Barra Olympic Park, built for 2016 Summer Olympics

The city has a history as host of major international sports events. Rio de Janeiro was the host of the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, making the city the first South American and Portuguese-speaking city to host these events, and the third time that the Olympics were held in a Southern Hemisphere city. The Maracanã Stadium held the finals of the 1950 and 2014 FIFA World Cups and the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup. The city also hosted the XV Pan American Games in 2007, and the G20 summit in 2024, and will host the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2027.

The Ginásio do Maracanãzinho was the host arena for the official FIBA Basketball World Championship for its 1954 and 1963 editions. Later, the Jacarepaguá circuit in Rio de Janeiro was the site for the Formula One Brazilian Grand Prix from 1978 to 1989. Rio de Janeiro also hosted the MotoGP Brazilian Grand Prix from 1995 to 2004 and the Champ Car event from 1996 to 1999. WCT/WQS surfing championships were contested on the beaches from 1985 to 2001. The Rio Champions Cup Tennis tournament is held in the spring.

The Brazilian martial art capoeira is very popular. Other popular sports are basketball, beach football, beach volleyball, Beach American Football, footvolley, surfing, kite surfing, hang gliding, motor racing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Luta Livre, sailing, and competitive rowing. Another sport that is highly popular in beaches of Rio is called frescobol, a type of beach tennis. Rio de Janeiro is also a popular location for Rock climbing, with hundreds of routes all over the city, ranging from easy boulders to technical climbs.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Boniface, Brian G., and Chris Cooper. Worldwide Destinations Casebook: The Geography Of Travel And Tourism. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005. ISBN 978-0750664400
• Coaracy, Vivaldo. Memórias da cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria J. Olympio, 1965. OCLC 27862672
• Couto, Jorge. A Construção do Brasil. Cosmos, 1995. ISBN 978-9728081850
• Kristal, Efraín (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Latin American Novel. Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0521825337
• Machado de Assis, Joaquim Maria. The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas. Penguin Classics, 2020 (original 1881). ISBN 978-0143135036
• Morrison, Allen. The Tramways of Brazil: A 130-Year Survey. Bonde Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0962234811
• Robinson, Alex. Rio de Janeiro Focus Guide. Footprint, 2014. ISBN 978-1909268883

External links

All links retrieved April 30, 2026.

• Rio de Janeiro City Hall website
• Explore Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea in the UNESCO collection on Google Arts and Culture
• Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea UNESCO World Heritage Convention
• Rio de Janeiro Visit Brasil
• Rio de Janeiro Travel Guide National Geographic
• The 8 best things to do in Rio de Janeiro Lonely Planet

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