Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte | |
|---|---|
 Location within Minas Gerais | |
| Coordinates: 19°49′01″S43°57′21″W / 19.81694°S 43.95583°W Coordinates: 19°49′01″S43°57′21″W / 19.81694°S 43.95583°W | |
| Country |  |
| Region | Southeast |
| State |  |
| Area | |
| • Total | 39,486.678 km2 (15,245.892 sq mi) |
| Population (2010/IBGE) | |
| • Total | 6,302,665 |
| • Density | 159.6/km2 (413/sq mi) |
| Time zone | UTC-3 (BRT) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-2 (BRST) |
| CEP postal code | 30000-000 |
| Area code(s) | +55 31 |
The mesoregion Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte is one of the twelve mesoregions of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. It is composed of 105 municipalities, [1] distributed across 8 microregions. It is the most populous and densely populated of all the mesoregions of Minas Gerais. The largest city by population is Belo Horizonte.
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers and with over 208 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the fifth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populated city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states, the Federal District, and the 5,570 municipalities. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas; it is also one of the most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from around the world.
Minas Gerais is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a major urban and finance center in Latin America, and the sixth largest municipality in Brazil, after the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Brasilia and Fortaleza, but its metropolitan area is the third largest in Brazil with just over 5,800,000 inhabitants, after those of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Nine Brazilian presidents were born in Minas Gerais, the most of any state.
Belo Horizonte is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population of approximately 2.5 million. It is the thirteenth-largest city in South America and the eighteenth-largest in the Americas. The metropolis is anchor to the Belo Horizonte metropolitan area, ranked as the third most populous metropolitan area in Brazil and the seventeenth most populous in the Americas. Belo Horizonte is the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil's second most populous state. It is the first planned modern city in Brazil.
The mesoregion encompasses all the Belo Horizonte metropolitan region (which has only 34 cities), and both should not be confused. The former is a geographical division created by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics for statistical purposes, while the latter is the definition of a metropolitan area.
Greater Belo Horizonte is the name usually used to describe the Belo Horizonte metropolitan region, which is composed of 34 municipalities. As of 2013, it is the third largest metropolitan area of Brazil with more than five million inhabitants. The largest city by population is Belo Horizonte.
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE is the agency responsible for official collection of statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil. IBGE performs a decennial national census; questionnaires account for information such as age, household income, literacy, education, occupation and hygiene levels.
A metropolitan area is a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metro area usually comprises multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships, boroughs, cities, towns, exurbs, suburbs, counties, districts, states, and even nations like the eurodistricts. As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions.
