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Rio de Janeiro Cultural Landscape

Brazil (Latin America and the Caribbean)

Date of Submission: 07/08/2001
Criteria:
Category: Cultural
Submission prepared by:
Ministry of Culture and of the Environment
Coordinates:
Lat. 22°56'56"1658 S ; Long. 43°09'23"1132 W
Ref.: 1566

Description

There are has been inhabited for more than 10 thousand years by various autochthonous cultures. Two thousand years ago it was conquered by the Tamoio nation of the TupiGuarani indigenous family.



The lands were spotted January 1st, 1502 by a Portuguese exploratory expédition, and they were designated R. Geneure, (Rio de Janeiro = January River), because it was believed to be the estuary of a large river.



The region was first settled by the French in 1555, who were expelled by the Portuguese ten years later. This date is commemorated as the founding of the most gracious of the Portuguese colonial cities. It became the capital of the colony in 1763, the seat of the Portuguese Royal Government in 1808, and the imperial capital of Brazil in 1822, when independence was proclaimed.



The area is remarkable for the beauty of its natural landscape. The spectacular geology is the repository of the fragmentation of the African and South American continents. Some rocky promontories have a height of 1 000th and have become symbols of the city. Among the most well known are the Pào de Açùcar (Sugar Loaf) and the Corcovado. On the latter, 700m high, a statue was. built in 1922 of Christ the Redeemer, today a reference of the city.



More than representing the city, this scenery became a symbol of the country and of landscape of the tropics. Its most noteworthy landscape elements are covered in the exubérant residual areas of the Atlantic Forest partly native and partly 19'h Century recomposition, that today make up the National Park of Tijuca. This Park is adjacent to the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden that is one of the most important research centers of Brazilian biodiversity and one of the most beautiful, in the world.