Belo Horizonte tourist information

The metropolis was once a small village, founded by João Leite da Silva Ortiz, a prospector from São Paulo. Having found a location with a pleasant weather, a nice landscape and a good soil for farming, the explorer settled in the region in 1701, quiting an expedition to find gold. He then established a farm called "Curral d'el Rey" - archaic Portuguese for the "King's Corral". The farm's wealth and success encouraged people from surrounding places to move into the region, and Curral del Rey became a village surrounded by farms. Most of these were built mainly by the Faria and Gutierrez families, being the terrains owned by the Gutierrez estabilished in a region that becamed a neighbouhood named after them. This particular family still is one of the richest families in Belo Horizonte, actually owning Telemar, one of the country's most successful telecommunication companies.

Another important growth factor of the village were the immigrants from the São Francisco river region, who had to pass through Curral del Rey in order to reach southern parts of Brazil. Travelers usually visited a small wooden chapel, where they prayed for a safe trip. Due to that, the chapel was named Capela da Nossa Senhora da Boa Viagem, which means "Chapel of Our Lady of the Good Trip". Years later it was upgraded to a bigger church.

The previous capital of Minas Gerais, Ouro Preto, was a symbol of both the monarchic Brazilian Empire and the period when most of Brazilian income was due to mining, and that never pleased the members of the Inconfidência Mineira, republican intelectuals that conspired against the Portuguese dominion of Brazil. In 1889 Brazil became a republic, and it was agreed that a new state capital, in tune with a modern and prosperous Minas Gerais, had to be set.

In 1893, due to good climatic and topografic conditions, Curral Del Rey was elected by Minas Gerais governor Afonso Pena from other cities as the spot for the new economical and cultural center of the state, under the new name of "Cidade de Minas", or Minas City.

The town planner from Pará Aarão Reis was then set to design the first planned city of Brazil, and then Cidade de Minas was inaugurated finally in 1897, with many unfinished constructions as the Brazilian Government set a deadline for its completion. Inhabitation of the city was subsided by the local government, by the concession of free empty lots and funding for building houses. An interesting feature of Belo Horizonte he designed was the downtown street plan, featuring a regular array of perpendicular and diagonal streets, named after Brazilian states and Brazilian indigenous tribes.

In 1906 the name was then changed to Belo Horizonte, and so far the city was experiencing a considerable industrial expansion that increased the city's commerce and service sectors.

The city's planning did not count on its populational growth afterwards, which was specially intense in the last twenty years of the 20th century. The city now deals with a number of infrastructure problems - about 20% of the population has no access to the sewage network, and floods that usually happen during the rainy season (November to March) are a big problem in the local Favelas, as houses are destroyed and people are killed.