Rio de Janeiro

     Rio de Janeiro is a traditional city and Brazil's former capital. It is a city filled with beautiful sights and home to the Carnaval. In order to understand the present customs and cultural displays, one must understand Rio's past.
     The city received its name because the Portuguese entered a bay (Baia de Guanabara) with a river (rio) in the month of January (janeiro).
     Most of Brazil's bayside was being explored, initially by the official colonists, the Portuguese, and later by the French and the Dutch. These explorers were mainly interested in animals and wood, especially brazilwood.
     Brazilwood has a special tint used to dye clothes red and it was very expensive in the European market. The Portuguese concentrated the bay patrol on the few places where they extracted the wood, somewhat neglecting the rest of the bay. The French took advantage of the careless gaps and invaded the city.
     Once there, they intended to remain for an extended amount of time and to expand the area they explored by forming "Antarctic France" (França Antártica) in the area corresponding to Rio de Janeiro.
     Portugal eventually succeeded in expelling the French from Rio de Janeiro and thereafter built fortresses to protect the area.
     When gold began to be exported from Brazil to Portugal, the gold was sent from Rio's docks, increasing Rio's importance and the peoples' living conditions, along with other conditions in the city.
     The city grew and the capital of the colony of Brazil was moved from Salvador, Bahia to Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, making Rio the most important city in Brazil.
     In 1808, the Portuguese royal family and court moved to Rio because of Napoleon's invasion of Lisbon. More than 15,000 people came, increasing the speed of city construction and enhancing its fundamentally colonial architecture.

     With the ascention of coffee as Brazil's main exporting product, Rio de Janeiro's structure and international trade developed.
     In 1960, Rio de Janeiro lost the status of capital to Brasilia. Brasilia was built in the Midwest of Brazil in order to bring Brazilian people away from the coastal cities. This decreased demography in the bay areas and increased it in the unihabited ones. Even so, Rio de Janeiro kept its cultural importance and continued to be an economic pole in Brazil.
     Today, Rio is mainly a touristic city, no longer holding industrial, economic, or national importance; apart from its role as the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro.