Rio de Janeiro (), officially the State of Rio de Janeiro (), is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil. It has the second largest economy of Brazil, with the largest being that of the state of São Paulo. The state, which has 8.2% of the Brazilian population, is responsible for 9.2% of the Brazilian GDP.

The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast (assigned by IBGE). Rio de Janeiro shares borders with all the other states in the same Southeast macroregion: Minas Gerais (N and NW), Espírito Santo (NE) and São Paulo (SW). It is bounded on the east and south by the South Atlantic Ocean. Rio de Janeiro has an area of . Its capital and most populous city is the city of Rio de Janeiro, which was the capital of the Portuguese Colony of Brazil from 1763 to 1815, of the following United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves from 1815 to 1822, and of later independent Brazil as a kingdom and republic from 1822 to 1960.

The state is divided into 92 municipalities. The state's 22 largest cities are Rio de Janeiro, São Gonçalo, Duque de Caxias, Nova Iguaçu, Niterói, Campos dos Goytacazes, Belford Roxo, São João de Meriti, Petrópolis, Volta Redonda, Magé, Macaé, Itaboraí, Cabo Frio, Armação dos Búzios, Angra dos Reis, Nova Friburgo, Barra Mansa, Barra do Piraí, Teresópolis, Mesquita and Nilópolis.

Rio de Janeiro is the smallest state by area in the Southeast macroregion and one of the smallest in Brazil. It is, however, the third most populous Brazilian state, with a population of over 16 million people at the 2022 Census (making it the most densely populated state in Brazil), and it has the third longest coastline in the country (after those of the states of Bahia and Maranhão).

In the Brazilian flag, the state is represented by Mimosa, the beta star in the Southern Cross (β Cru).

Etymology Guanabara Bay was first encountered by Europeans on January 1, 1502, when Portuguese explorers Gaspar de Lemos and Gonçalo Coelho Jorge Couto, 1995, A Construção do Brasil, Lisbon: Cosmos. arrived on its shores. According to some historians, Vasco Mariz, 2006, "Os Fundadores do Rio de Janeiro: Vespucci, Villegagnon ou Estácio de Sá?", in Brasil-França. Relações históricas no período colonial, Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca do Exército, p. 80. the name given by the exploration team to the bay was originally Ria de Janeiro ("January Ria"). Then confusion took place between the words ria and rio ("river"). As a result, the name of the bay was soon fixed as Rio de Janeiro.

Demonym The demonym for the State of Rio de Janeiro is fluminense, from Latin flumen, fluminis, meaning "river". While carioca is an older term, first attested in 1502, fluminense was sanctioned in 1783, twenty years after the city had become the capital of the Brazilian colonies, as the official demonym of the Royal Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro and subsequently of the Province of Rio de Janeiro. From 1783 through the Imperial Regime, carioca remained an unofficial term which other Brazilians used for the inhabitants of the city as well as the province. During the first years of the Brazilian Republic, carioca came to be the name given to those who lived in the city's slums or a pejorative used to refer to the bureaucratic elite of the Federal District. Only when the city lost its status as Federal District (to Brasília) and became the State of Guanabara in 1960 did carioca become an official demonym along with guanabarino. In 1975, Guanabara State was incorporated into Rio de Janeiro State, becoming the present City of Rio de Janeiro. Carioca became the demonym of the city, while fluminense continues to be used for the state as a whole.

History

Hereditary captainships European presence in Rio de Janeiro dates back to 1502. Rio de Janeiro originated from parts of the captainships of de Tomé and São Vicente. Between 1555 and 1567, the territory was occupied by the French, who intended to install a colony, France Antarctique. Aiming to prevent the occupation of the Frenchmen, in March 1565, the city of Rio de Janeiro was established by Estácio de Sá.

In the 17th century, cattle raising and sugar cane cultivation stimulated the city's progress, which was definitively assured when the port started to export gold extracted from Minas Gerais in the 18th century. In 1763, Rio de Janeiro became the capital of Colonial Brazil. With the flight of the Portuguese royal family from Portugal to Brazil in 1808, the region soon benefited from urban reforms to house the Portuguese. Chief among the promoted changes were the transformation of agencies of public administration and justice, the creation of new churches and hospitals, the foundation of the first bank of the country (the Bank of Brazil) and the Royal Press, with the Gazette do Rio of Janeiro. The following years witnessed the creation of the Jardim Botânico (Botanical Garden) and the .

There followed a process of cultural enhancement influenced not only by the arrival of the royal family, but also by the presence of European graphic artists who were hired to record the society and Brazilian natural features. During this same time, was founded as well.

The neutral city In 1834, the city of Rio de Janeiro was transformed into a "neutral city", remaining as capital of the state, while the captainships became provinces, with headquarters in Niterói, a neighbouring city. In 1889, the city became the capital of the Republic, the neutral city became the federal district and the province a state. In 1894, Petrópolis became the capital of Rio de Janeiro, until 1902 when Niterói recovered its capital status. With the relocation of the federal capital to Brasília in 1960, the city of Rio de Janeiro became Guanabara State. Niterói remained the state capital for Rio de Janeiro state, while Rio de Janeiro served the same status for Guanabara.

The new state of Rio de Janeiro

In 1975, a further change took place, with the merger of the states of Rio de Janeiro and the state of Guanabara, restoring the then city-state to the status of a municipality, governed by mayors.

In the 1970s, with the transfer of the capital to Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro began to be one of the worst states in the country in terms of economic dynamism. There was no political discussion about the course of the city after it ceased to be the country's capital. "Rio de Janeiro was a job hanger for politicians from all over Brazil. Everyone referred a friend, a relative to take a position in the federal district," explains Marieta de Moraes Ferreira, history professor at UFRJ. Left-wing governors and mayors such as Leonel Brizola, Saturnino Braga, Marcello Allencar, César Maia, Anthony Garotinho, and Benedita da Silva, among others, helped drive away many industries that still existed in the state. Combined with the incitement to favelas, where Brizola said for example that "the favela is not a problem, the favela is a solution", the capital has deteriorated in a few decades, dragging down the State. The state still maintains itself as the largest oil producer in Brazil (80% of the total), where royalties and special participations brought the state 4.2 billion reais in 2014, when the barrel of oil reached $93.48. But oil revenues, used by the government to repay financing debts, including the payroll of idle workers, fell to 1.6 billion reais. The international price of a barrel fell to USD 50.48 in 2016 and reached a low of USD 28. Petrobras became the target of the largest anti-corruption operation in Brazil, with the participation of governors such as Sérgio Cabral Filho and Pezão, linked to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, pushing back investments that were to be at the forefront of the pre-salt exploration. Even when state municipalities received millions of reais in royalties, public spending was used for marginal improvements, for beautification, such as porcelain floors, whale-shaped monuments, without generating revenue or benefit. jobs for the population. Political leaders are blamed for the lack of a unified project for Rio de Janeiro's economy.

Geography

The state is part of the Mata Atlântica biome and is made up of two distinct morphological areas: a coastal plain, known as baixada, and a plateau, which are disposed in parallel fashion from the shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean inland towards Minas Gerais.

The coastline extends 635 kilometers and is formed by the bays of Guanabara, Sepetiba, and Ilha Grande. There are prominent slopes near the ocean, featuring also diverse environments, such as restinga vegetation, bays, lagoons and tropical forests.

Most of the state however consists of highlands, often higher than 1000 m, formed by several mountain chains like the Serra do Mar which separates Rio from the state of São Paulo. The highest point of the state, the Pico das Agulhas Negras (Black Needles Peak) is located in the Serra da Mantiqueira which forms the physical border with neighbouring Minas Gerais.

Its principal rivers are the Guandu, the Piraí, the Paraíba do Sul, the Macaé and the Muriaé.

Climate

The entire state is located within the tropics (the Tropic of Capricorn passes just a few kilometers south of the state's southernmost point) so a tropical climate is predominant. However, due to altitude, temperatures can drop to freezing point or below in some parts. Frost is not uncommon in some mountainous cities such as Teresópolis, Nova Friburgo and Petrópolis and snow has been reported occasionally in the Itatiaia National Park.

Annual mean temperatures on the coast are around , in summer and in winter. In the mountains annual mean temperatures are around but can range from at an elevation of above sea level to in the Itatiaia National Park. Summers in these areas tend to be warm but not hot, with averages around . Winters are quite chilly by Brazilian standards with lows around .

Rains tend to be concentrated in the summer (December to March) with a dry season in the winter (June to September). Most of the state receives between of rainfall in a year.

Demographics According to the IBGE of 2022, there were 16,055,174 people residing in the state. The population density was .The last PNAD (National Household Survey) census revealed the following numbers: 6,739,901 White people (42.0%), 6,682,740 Pardo (Multiracial) people (41.6%), 2,594,253 Black people (16.2%), 21,837 Asian people (0.1%), 15,904 Amerindian people (0.1%).

People of Portuguese ancestry predominate in most of the state. The Brazilian census of 1920 showed that 39,74% of the Portuguese who lived in Brazil lived in Rio de Janeiro. Including all of the Rio de Janeiro, the proportion raised to 46,30% of the Portuguese who lived in Brazil. The numerical presence of the Portuguese was extremely high, accounting for 72% of the foreigners who lived in the capital. Portuguese born people accounted for 20,36% of the population of Rio, and those with a Portuguese father or a Portuguese mother accounted for 30,84%. In other words, native born Portuguese and their children accounted for 51,20% of the inhabitants of Rio, or a total of 267664 people in 1890.

Other European ethnic groups, such as Swiss, Finnish and Germans settled mostly in the mountainous areas (Nova Friburgo, Petrópolis, etc.) and in the capital. Italians and Spaniards are also present in the capital as well as in the surrounding cities.

Largest cities

Religion