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Goiás

Flag of Goiás
See other Brazilian States
Capital	Goiânia
Largest City	Goiânia
Area	341 289 km²
Population   - Total   - Density	4 848 725 14.2 inh./km²
Governor	Marconi Perillo
Demonym	Goiano
HDI (2000)	0.776 – medium
Timezone	GMT-3
ISO 3166-2	BR-GO

Goiás (pron. IPA: /go.'jas/ ) is a state of Brazil, located in the central part of the country. Neighboring states are (from north clockwise) Tocantins, Bahia, Minas Gerais, the Federal District, Mato Grosso do Sul and Mato Grosso.

• Number of municipalities: 246
• Inhabitant: goiano
• Highest point: Chapada dos Veadeiros (1.691 m.)

Top 15 cities in order of population (est. 01/07/2005 from IBGE):

• Goiânia (1,201,006)
• Aparecida de Goiânia (435,234)
• Anápolis (313,412)
• Luziânia (180,227)
• Águas Lindas de Goiás (159,294)
• Rio Verde (133,231)
• Valparaíso de Goiás (119,493)
• Trindade (95,300)
• Planaltina de Goiás (94,717)
• Novo Gama (93,081)
• Formosa (90,247)
• Itumbiara (85,724)
• Jataí (76,100)
• Senador Canedo (71,399)
• Catalão (70,574)

See City population of Goiás for table showing population from 1991 to 2005 in the 37 largest cities.

Cities with touristic interest

• Caldas Novas (65,637)
• Cristalina (39,867)
• Ipamerí (22,600)
• Pirenópolis (21,241)
• Goiás (14,173)
• Paraúna (10,900)
• Corumbá de Goiás (9,915)
• Aruanã (5,212)

See also:

• List of cities in Brazil (all cities and municipalities)

Geography

Goiás lies wholly within the Brazilian Highlands, which are located in the center of the country. It occupies a large plateau, the vast almost level surface of which stands between 750 and 900 m above sea level and forms the divide between three of Brazil's largest river systems: to the south Goiás is drained by the Paranaíba River, a tributary of the Paraná River; to the east it is drained by tributaries of the São Francisco River; and northward the state is drained by the Araguaia River and the Tocantins River and their tributaries.

Other major rivers in the state are the Meia Ponte, Aporé, São Marcos, Corumbá River, Claro, Paranã, Maranhão, Paranã and Preto. None of these rivers is navigable except for short distances by small craft.

The state is covered with a woodland savanna known in Brazil as campo cerrado, although there are still tropical forests along the rivers. This cerrado has been seriously diminished in recent years due to cattle raising and soybean farming with great loss of animal life and forest cover.

The climate of the plateau is subtropical. Average monthly temperatures vary from 26 °C in the warmest month to 22 °C in the coldest. The year is divided into a rainy season (October–March) and a dry season (April–September). Average annual rainfall is about 1,700 mm, but this varies due to elevation and microclimate.

The Great Central West Region, consisting of the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, and the Federal District, is among the fastest-growing regions of Brazil. The population of Goiás state tripled in size in the period from 1950 to 1980 and is still growing very quickly. However, outside the Federal District and the Goiânia metropolitan region (with a population of over a million) most of Goiás is very thinly populated. The chief concentration of settlement is in the southeast, in the area of Goiânia (Goiânia and Aparecida de Goiânia), across the border from Minas Gerais, (Catalão, Rio Verde, Jataí, and Caldas Novas), and around the Federal District (Formosa, Planaltina de Goiás, and Luziânia).

Social aspects

Goiás is the most populous state of the Central West, concentrating 43% of the total population of the region. In the nineties it had a demographic growth slightly greater than that of the previous decade, with rates approaching 2.4%, in comparison with the average increase of 1.38% of all the country. This fact is explained by the increase in migration in the direction of the regions near Goiânia and the cities neighboring the Federal District.

The average per capita income of Goiás is the lowest of the Center West, according to the Institute of Applied Economics Research (IPEA), and less than that of the average Brazilian per capita. The number of houses with water and sewage and garbage collection is also below the national average. The great rural properties (more than 10 km²) represent only 4.9% of the agrarian establishments of the state and control 47.1% of the territory. The small properties (up to 1 km²) correspond to 60.5% of the total number of properties but occupy only 9.2% of the area of the state. The land concentration has led, in recent years, to innumberable conflicts over possession of land. The crisis in the countryside is one of the main problems faced by the government.

Despite the rapid development of the south of Goiás and the Goiânia-Anápolis metropolitan area, health and education statistics are still below first-world standards. There are still areas in northern Goiás with low health and educational levels.

• Infant mortality: 25.02% (1999)
• Doctors: 10.05 per 100,000 inhabitants (August 2000)
• Hospital beds: 4.41 per 1,000 inhabitants (April 2000)
• Illiteracy: 13% (1998)
• Functional illiteracy: 30.6% (1998)

History

The first European penetration of this interior part of Brazil was carried out by expeditions from São Paulo in the 17th century. Gold was discovered in the gravel of a tributary of the Araguaia River by the explorer Bartolomé Bueno de Silva in 1682. The settlement he founded there, called Santa Anna, became the colonial town of Goiás Velho, the former state capital. In 1744 the large inland area, much of it still unexplored by Europeans, was made a captaincy general, and in 1822 it became a province of the empire of Brazil. It became a state in 1889. The Brazilian constitution of 1891 specified that the nation's capital should be moved to the Brazilian Highlands (Planalto Central), and in 1956 Goiás was selected as the site for the federal district and capital city, Brasília. The seat of the federal government was officially moved to Brasília in 1960.

Goiânia, the largest city and capital was planned in 1933 to replace the old, inaccessible former state capital of Goiás, 110 km northwest. In 1937 the state government moved there, and in 1942 the official inauguration was held. Goiânia is now one of the fastest growing cities in Brazil and is regularly voted one of the most livable cities in the country.

Due to the immense territory of the state, which was over 600,000 sq. km., communications were obviously very difficult. The northern part of the state began to feel abandoned by the southern government and began a movement for separation. Local political leaders, many of whom were large landowners and were eager to gain important positions such as governor or senator and financial gain with the construction of a new capital, also encouraged the movement. In 1989 the northern half of Goiás became a separate state called Tocantins.

Education

Educational indicators:

• Students enrolled in pre-school: 104,653 (2000)
• Students enrolled in primary schools: 1,129,540 (2000)
• Students enrolled in secundary schools: 254,548 (2000)
• Students enrolled in universities or colleges: 57,661 (1999)

Goiás has one federal university, the Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), located in Goiânia. It was created in 1960 and restructured in 1968. It has campuses in Catalão, Jataí, and Rialma. The total number of students in all the campuses was 13,180 in 2003.

The Universidade Estadual de Goiás was created in 1999 and is present in 38 municipalities.

In addition to these public universities there are many private universities and colleges. The most important are:

• Universidade Católica de Goiás (Goiânia),

• Faculdade Anhanguera de Goiás, (Goiânia)

• Faculdades Objetivo de Goiânia,

• Universidade de Rio Verde, and

• Associação Educativa Evangélica (founded in 1947 in Anápolis, the first in Goiás).

Economy

Goiás is a leader in the country in cattle raising. The number of cows was estimated in 2000 to be around 18 million, four for every inhabitant. Possibly only Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul have more cattle. Agriculture as a total represented 21% of the GDP of the state, with great production of sugarcane, soybeans, corn, tomato, rice, cotton, manioc, and beans.

Minerals are also important with the state being a major producer of nickel, manganese, cobalt, iron, gold, and silver.

The strongest growing area in the state has been in industry and commerce. Goiânia and Anápolis have become centers of food-processing industries and pharmaceutical factories. Rio Verde, in the south, is one of the fastest growing small cities with many new industries locating in the area.

Important economic indicators

• Composition of the state GDP: agriculture: 21.1%; industry: 20%; services: 58.9% (1999).
• Participation in the national GDP: 2% (1999)
• Agriculture (in tons): sugarcane (9,251,798), soybeans (3,420,653), corn (3,414,601), tomato (759,009), rice (352,135), cotton (278,363), manioc (255,639), beans (200,977)--(1999)
• Livestock (in head): fowl (80,000,000 est.), cattle (18,000,000 est.), pigs (1,000,000 est.)--(1999)
• Minerals: titanium-ilmenite (1,624 t), nickel (52,302 t), manganese (23,242 t), cobalt (484 t), iron (199 brute tons), niobium-pirocloride (54,953 t), gold (4,512.882 grams), silver (211,917)--(1998)
• Industry: food, metalurgy, extraction of non-metalic minerals.

Ecological problems

To conciliate the expansion of agroindustry and cattle raising with the preservation of the cerrado, one of the richest regions in the world in biodiversity, is one of the main challenges of Goiás. At the same time that it has the third largest cattle herd of the country and occupies first place in grain production, the state lives with serious environmental damage caused by the predatory occupation of its territory.

The expansion of cattle raising especially has caused damage to the cerrado. The native forest has been for the most part destroyed and the permanent reserves gradually cut down to give way to cattle and farming. In the region of the sources of the Araguaia River there are areas of erosion caused by cutting down the trees in order to plant create pastures. This has produced "voçorocas"--deep erosion, practically out of control, which reach the water table. Some measure up to 1.5 km. long, 100 meters wide, and 30 meters deep.

These problems, together with the loss of river banks, are causing Goiás to face a serious crisis in water supply, which is exacerbated by the long dry season. Cities like Goiânia, Anápolis, and Luziânia are especially vulnerable, especially since they dump their raw sewage into the rivers that pass through them or nearby.

Flag

The green bars in the flag symbolize the spring and the yellow bars gold. The blue rectangle in the topleft corner symbolizes the sky, with the five stars forming the constellation of the Southern Cross. The flag was adopted on July 30, 1919.

Notes

1. The presented pronunciation is in Brazilian Portuguese. The European Portuguese pronunciation is: /go.'jaʃ/.

External links

• Portal de Informações do Estado de Goiás
• Historical Cities of Goiás
• Map of the State

• States of Brazil
• Goiás