Founding
municipality of Amazonas state, Brazil
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Manaus (Portuguese: [maˈnaws, mɐ-] ⓘ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Amazonas. It is the seventh-largest city in Brazil, with an estimated 2024 population of 2,279,686 distributed over a land area of about 11,401 km2 (4,402 sq mi). Located at the east centre of the state, the city is the centre of the Manaus metropolitan area and the largest metropolitan area in the North Region of Brazil by urban landmass. It is situated near the confluence of the Negro and Amazon rivers. It is one of the two cities in the Amazon rainforest with a population of over 1 million people, alongside Belém.
The city was founded in 1669 as the Fort of São José do Rio Negro. It was elevated to a town in 1832 with the name of "Manaus", an altered spelling of the indigenous Manaós peoples, and legally transformed into a city on October 24, 1848, with the name of Cidade da Barra do Rio Negro, Portuguese for "The City of the Margins of the Black River". On September 4, 1856, it returned to the name "Manaus".
Manaus is located in the center of the Amazon rainforest, and home to the National Institute of Amazonian Research, being the most important center for scientific studies in the Amazon region and for international sustainability issues. It was known at the beginning of the century as Heart of the Amazon and City of the Forest. Its main economic engine is the Industrial Park of Manaus, a Free Economic Zone. The city has a free port and an international airport. Its manufactures include electronics, chemical products, and soap; there are distilling and ship construction industries. Manaus exports Brazil nuts, rubber, jute, and rosewood oil. It has a cathedral, the Amazon Theatre opera house, zoological and botanical gardens, an eco-park, and regional and native peoples museums.
The Solimões and Negro rivers meet just east of Manaus and join to form the Amazon River (using the Brazilian definition of the river; elsewhere, Solimões is considered the upper part of the Amazon). Rubber made it the richest city in South America during the late 1800s. Rubber helped Manaus earn its nickname, the Paris of the Tropics. Many wealthy European families settled in Manaus and brought their love for sophisticated European art, architecture, and culture with them. Manaus was one of the twelve Brazilian host cities of the 2014 World Cup, as well as one of the six hosts of football matches at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
The name Manaus comes from the native people called Manaós, which means Mother of the Gods.
The history of the European colonization of Manaus began in 1499 with the Spanish arrival at the mouth of the Amazon River. The Spanish then continued to colonize the region north of Brazil. Development continued in 1668–1669 with the building of the Fort of São José da Barra do Rio Negro by the Portuguese in order to ensure its predominance in the region, especially against the Dutch, at that time headquartered in what is today Suriname. The fort was constructed in rock and clay, with four cannons guarding the curtains. It continued to function for more than 100 years. Next to the fort there were many indigenous mestizos, who helped in its construction and began to live in the vicinity.
The population grew so much that, in 1695, the missionaries (Carmelite, Jesuit, Franciscan) built a nearby chapel dedicated to Nossa Senhora da Conceição (Our Lady of the Conception), who, in time, became the patron saint of the city. A Royal Charter of March 3, 1755 created the captaincy of São José do Rio Negro, with capital in Mariuá (now Barcelos), but with the governor, Lobo D'Almada, fearing a Spanish invasion, the seat went back to Lugar de Barra in 1791. Being located at the confluence of the Rio Negro and Amazon Rivers, it was a strategic point. On November 13, 1832, Lugar da Barra was elevated to town status and named Manaus. On October 24, 1848, under Law 145 of the Provincial Assembly of Para, it was renamed the City of Barra do Rio Negro. On September 4, 1856, the governor, Herculano Ferreira Pena, finally gave it the name "Manaus".
The Cabanagem was the revolt in which blacks, Native Americans, and mestizos fought against the white political elite and took power in 1835. The Cabanagem reduced the population of the then state of Grão-Pará from about 100,000 to 60,000. The involvement of rebels from the Upper Amazon (Manaus today) in what was originally a movement based in Belém was crucial for the birth of the current state of Amazonas. During the brief period of revolution, the Cabanos of the Upper Amazon, bands of rebels, roamed throughout the region, occupying Manaus twice, and, in most settlements, their arrival was greeted by the non-white population spontaneously joining their ranks, leading to a greater number of adherents to the movement. With that there was an integration of people in the region thus forming the state.
Manaus was at the center of the Amazon region's rubber boom during the late 19th century. For a time, it was "one of the gaudiest cities of the world". Historian Robin Furneaux wrote of this period, "No extravagance, however absurd, deterred" the rubber barons. "If one rubber baron bought a vast yacht, another would install a tame lion in his villa, and a third would water his horse on champagne." The city built a grand opera house, with vast domes and gilded balconies, and using marble, glass, and crystal, from around Europe. The opera house cost ten million (public-funded) dollars. In one season, half the members of one visiting opera troupe died of yellow fever. The opera house, called the Teatro Amazonas, was effectively closed for most of the 20th Century. However it was used in scenes of the Werner Herzog film Fitzcarraldo (1982). After a gap of almost 90 years, it reopened to produce live opera in 1997 and is now attracting performers from all over the world.
When the seeds of the rubber tree were smuggled out of the Amazon region to be cultivated on plantations in Southeast Asia, Brazil and Peru lost their monopoly on the product. The rubber boom ended abruptly, many people left its major cities, and Manaus fell into poverty. The rubber boom had made possible electrification of the city before it was installed in many European cities, but the end of the rubber boom made the generators too expensive to run. The city was not able to generate electricity again for years.
In the 1960s during the establishment of the military dictatorship in Brazil, the newly installed government concerned about the "demographic gap in Brazil", began to introduce numerous projects in the interior of the country, especially in the Amazon region, with the introduction of the Manaus free trade zone in 1967, and with the opening of new roads within the region, the city had a wide period of investments in financial and economic capital, both national and international, attracted by the tax incentives granted by the free zone, in this period, Manaus had enormous demographic growth becoming one of the most populous cities in Brazil.
Manaus was one of the host cities of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and one of the seats of some Olympic football games. It was the only host city in the Amazon rainforest and the most geographically isolated, being further north and west than any of the other host cities. A massive prison riot occurred in January 2017, having begun in Manaus and later spreading to two additional cities in Brazil, thus unleashing security problems within the country.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, an estimated 76% of the population of Manaus was infected with coronavirus, and the possibility of herd immunity was discussed. However, a second outbreak infected people in Manaus, this time with the Lineage B.1.1.248 variant starting in early January 2021.
The largest city in northern Brazil, Manaus occupies an area of 11,401 square kilometres (4,402 sq mi), with a density of 158.06 inhabitants per square kilometre (409.4/sq mi). It is the neighboring city of Presidente Figueiredo, Careiro, Iranduba, Rio Preto da Eva, Itacoatiara, and Novo Airão.
Manaus is located in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world. Wet tropical forests are the most species-rich biome, and tropical forests in the Americas are consistently more species-rich than the wet forests in Africa and Asia. As the largest tract of tropical rainforest in the Americas, the Amazonian rainforests have unparalleled biodiversity. More than one-third of all species in the world live in the Amazon rainforest.
Despite being located in the Amazon, Manaus is densely developed and has few green areas in the city. The largest green areas are:
Manaus has a tropical monsoon climate (Am) according to the Köppen climate classification system, just dry enough in its driest month to not be a tropical rainforest climate, with the average annual compensated temperature of 27.4 °C (81.3 °F) and high air humidity, with a rainfall index around 2,300 mm (90.6 in) annually. The seasons are relatively well-defined concerning rain: July to September is relatively dry, and December to May (summer and autumn) is very rainy. Summer and autumn are colder than winter and spring (June to November). Thunderstorms are frequent every day in the summer (December to February), but they can occur at any time of the year. There have been occasional occurrences of hail in the city.
Due to the city's proximity to the equator, the heat is constant in the local climate. There are no cold days in winter (June to August); instead, winter is hotter than summer. Periodically, very intense polar air masses occur in the South-Central part of Brazil and in the southwest of the Amazon, and have some effect on the city, as occurred in August 1955. But although they are rare, they influence the climate, causing the temperature to drop to 18 °C (64.4 °F) or below. The proximity to the forest usually avoids extremes of heat and makes the city wet.
According to the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET), the highest temperature registered in the city was 39 °C (102.2 °F) in 2015, and the lowest was 12 °C (53.6 °F) in 1989.
On November 26, 2009, a case of acid rain was recorded in Manaus. Air pollution, caused in large part by the accumulation of smoke from burning, associated with the sulfur dioxide emitted by cars, was the cause of this phenomenon. Although the incidence of acid rain is common in some Brazilian capitals where there is a great concentration of cars, in Manaus (and other cities of the Amazonas) the situation is aggravated by the prolonged period of drought with the smoke from forest fires.
The urban area covers all or part of four river basins, all tributaries of the Rio Negro. The São Raimundo and Educandos streams are completely contained in the city. The Tarumã Açu forms the western boundary of the city in its lower reaches, and is fed by several tributaries that originate in the Ducke Reserve and run through the north and west of the city. The Puraquequara forms the east boundary of the urban area in its lower section.
According to the IBGE in 2019, there were 2,182,763 people residing in the city, and 2,676,936 people in the Metropolitan Region of Manaus. The population density of Manaus was 191.45 inhabitants per square kilometre (495.9/sq mi).
Manaus is the seventh largest city in Brazil, after São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Brasília, Fortaleza and Belo Horizonte.
The city's population growth is above the national average, and 10% above the average for the capital (Brasilia). Most of the population is located in the North and East regions of the city, and the New Town (northern area) the neighborhood is the most populous, with more than 260,000 residents.
According to the results of the last census, the city's population increased from 343,038 inhabitants in 1960 to 622,733 in 1970. By 1990, the population grew to 1,025,979 inhabitants, increasing its density to 90 inhabitants per square kilometre (230/sq mi).
According to a 2013 genetic study, the ancestry of the inhabitants of Manaus is 45.9% European, 37.8% Native American, and 16.3% African.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Manaus”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.