Rio de Janeiro
Actually, no one could express it better than did this rugged warrior.
The beauty of this town, this scenery, is not easy to describe. It defies
words; it defies photography; for it is too varied, too overwhelming, too
inexhaustible. Even an artist wanting to reveal Rio in its entirety, with
all its thousand colours and its landscape, could not complete such a work
in a lifetime; ... On the whole earth--and anyone having seen it once will
agree with me--there is no more beautiful city, and it is unlikely that there
exists one more unfathomable, more difficult to get to know. There seems no end to its mysteries.
| name | Rio de Janeiro |
| type | Megalopolis |
| site | Tropic of Capricorn, between the Atlantic and the Bay of Guanabara 22 54‘ S 43 14‘ W |
| alitude: average 2 m max 1025 m area: 100m over NN 255,14 km² |
|
| history | 1503 Ameriga Vespucci and his expedition group discovered the Bay of Guanabara 1567 founded by Portuguese 1808-1821 residence of the Portuguese king 1822 capital of the empire 1889-1960 capital of the republic Brazil |
| area | 1.224,56 km² incl. Favelas 37 km² |
| habitants | 5.857.904 incl. ca. 1.092.000 favelados |
| denseness | 4 640,17 habitants/ km² |
| urbanised area | 46,3% |
| water | 86 km of coastal line 217 rivers and channels with a total length of 639 km, lagoons with an area of 15,2 km² |
| nature | 29,83 % |
| topography | Rio is lying in a landscape of spanking massif. Sedimentation and erosion have left some outrageous peaks called Morros. |
Stefan Zweig
Brazil - A land of future, Frankfurt am Main 1984 [1941]