Rio was a royal court city before it became Brazil's postcard
Rio de Janeiro is capital of its namesake state, Brazil's second-largest city after São Paulo, and the country's top draw for international tourists—about six million in the city and thirteen million in the metro. Founded in 1565, it became capital of the State of Brazil in 1763.
When the Portuguese court fled to Brazil in 1808, Rio housed the monarchy. Today it holds the second-largest municipal GDP nationally and ranked about thirtieth worldwide in 2008 at roughly 343 billion reais, hosting major oil, mining, and telecom firms.
Europeans first saw Guanabara Bay on 1 January 1502, which is why they called it the January River; the region was home to Tupi, Puri, Botocudo and Maxakalí peoples. In 1555 some 500 French colonists under Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon built Fort Coligny on an island in the bay for their France Antarctique colony, until Portugal moved to expel them. Estácio de Sá founded São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro on 1 March 1565, honouring the saint who was the Portuguese king's namesake.
Gold and diamonds found in Minas Gerais in the late 17th century made Rio a handier export port than Salvador. It was also a city built on slavery: the captaincy held 145,000 enslaved people in 1819 and 220,000 by 1840, and between 1811 and 1831 from half a million to a million arrived through Valongo Wharf, now a World Heritage Site. Prince Pedro kept Rio as imperial capital after independence in 1822, and it became the stage for the abolitionist and republican movements.
In 1894 British workers played Brazil's first football match beside the Bangu textile factory. When Pereira Passos became mayor in 1902 he demolished crowded tenements to modernize the city, pushing poor residents onto the hills where the first favelas formed.
Source: Rio de Janeiro
