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Rio de Janeiro

City in BrazilRio de Janeiro lies on the Atlantic coast of south-eastern Brazil, at the entrance to Guanabara Bay, which is marked by Sugarloaf Mountain.

What it's known for

Rio is Brazil's second-largest city and the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro. It is known for Carnival, samba, bossa nova and beaches such as Copacabana and Ipanema, and it hosted the 2016 Summer Olympics, the first held in South America.

Fun facts

  1. The name means 'River of January', because Portuguese explorers first reached Guanabara Bay on 1 January 1502.
  2. After the Portuguese royal court moved to Brazil in 1808, Rio became the capital of the Portuguese kingdom, the only European capital outside Europe.
  3. The Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado mountain was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

Finding it on the globe

Follow Brazil's coast about 360 km east-northeast from São Paulo, to where the shore runs east to west near the Tropic of Capricorn: Rio sits at the mouth of a large bay there.

Easy to mix up

Rio was Brazil's capital from 1763 until 21 April 1960, when the capital moved to Brasília, about 930 km inland to the northwest.

Sources: Wikipedia: Rio de Janeiro