60 Fun Facts About Rio De Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro is the second-largest city in Brazil after which city?

About 6 million people live in the city proper and 13 million in the metro area, making it the sixth most populous city in the Americas.

Rio de Janeiro's name comes from the date Europeans first sighted Guanabara Bay, in which year?

The Portuguese mistook the bay for a river mouth; the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci is said to have been aboard as an observer.

Which European power landed 500 colonists on an island in Guanabara Bay in 1555, before the Portuguese expelled them?

Admiral Villegagnon's 500 colonists built Fort Coligny; Mem de Sá and his nephew finally drove them out in 1567.

The city was founded on 1 March 1565 by a Portuguese force led by whom?

He was the nephew of Governor General Mem de Sá and named the settlement São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro after the king's patron saint.

The city's full founding name honours which saint, still its patron?

He was also the namesake of the reigning Portuguese king Sebastião; the modern conical cathedral downtown carries the same dedication.

In 1808 the Portuguese royal court moved to Rio, fleeing whose invasion of Portugal?

Rio thus became the only European capital ever located outside Europe; hundreds of nobles arrived so suddenly that residents were evicted to house them.

Rio stopped being the capital of Brazil in which year, when the seat of government moved to Brasília?

The old Federal District briefly became its own state, Guanabara, until a 1975 decree known as 'The Fusion' merged it into Rio de Janeiro state.

Which Brazilian president, elected in 1955, kept his promise to build a new inland capital?

Many dismissed the pledge as rhetoric, but Brasília was built at great cost within five years.

Which city was capital of Rio de Janeiro state before 1975, while Rio was a separate federal territory?

The 1975 'Fusion' decree merged the city-state of Guanabara with the surrounding state, and Rio replaced Niterói across the bay as capital.

What are residents of Rio de Janeiro called?

The word is also the name of the local dialect and of the Carioca River, whose springs King João VI protected by decree in 1817.

Rio's official civic anthem, a favourite at Carnival, is titled 'Cidade Maravilhosa', which means what?

It was written by André Filho and is played endlessly during the February festivities.

The statue of Christ the Redeemer stands on the summit of which mountain?

The 700-metre peak sits inside the Tijuca National Park, and a cog railway built in the 1880s still carries visitors up.

Which French-Polish sculptor created Christ the Redeemer?

Engineer Heitor da Silva Costa built it, Albert Caquot handled the concrete design and Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida did the face.

Christ the Redeemer's outer layer is made of which stone?

The core is reinforced concrete; the soapstone was chosen for durability and ease of use, and periodic repairs replace pieces damaged by wind and lightning.

How tall is Christ the Redeemer, excluding its 8-metre pedestal?

The outstretched arms span 28 metres and the whole thing weighs 635 tonnes; it is the world's largest Art Deco sculpture.

At the statue's 1931 opening, which inventor was supposed to switch on the floodlights remotely from Rome?

Bad weather spoiled the stunt across 9,200 km, and the lights had to be turned on at the site instead.

The original 1920s plan for the Christ statue would have shown Jesus holding what?

The open-armed design was chosen instead as a symbol of peace, funded largely by donations from Brazilian Catholics.

Sugarloaf Mountain got its name because its shape reminded the Portuguese of what?

During the sugarcane boom, blocks of sugar were packed in conical clay moulds; the name has since become a generic term for peaks of that shape.

How high does Sugarloaf Mountain rise above the harbour?

It is a bornhardt, a steep-sided granite and quartz dome, and its 270-plus climbing routes make it one of the largest urban climbing areas anywhere.

Sugarloaf's cableway, opened in 1912, was the first in Brazil and which number in the world?

Engineer Augusto Ferreira Ramos dreamed it up in 1907; the original coated-wood cars stayed in service for 61 years.

Passengers reaching Sugarloaf's summit change cable cars on which intermediate hill?

The first car climbs to the 220-metre hill and the second continues to the top; the whole ascent takes about three minutes.

To which country did Brazil lose the deciding 1950 World Cup match before a record Maracanã crowd?

Brazil needed only a draw; the 2–1 defeat is still remembered as the Maracanaço.

The Maracanã is officially named after Mário Filho, who was what by profession?

Filho, brother of playwright Nelson Rodrigues, had championed the stadium's construction; the popular name comes from a nearby river.

The word 'Maracanã' comes from a Tupi term for what kind of animal?

The Maracanã River rises in the wooded hills to the west and reaches Guanabara Bay through a concrete drainage canal.

Which two clubs share management of the Maracanã and set the club attendance record of 194,603 in their 1963 derby?

The Fla–Flu is one of football's oldest rivalries; the stadium now seats 73,139 after Olympic-era renovations.

The 2014 World Cup final at the Maracanã saw Germany beat which team 1–0?

Rio's ground hosted seven matches that tournament, and it also staged the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics two years later.

Rio de Janeiro hosted the Summer Olympics in which year, the first South American city to do so?

It beat Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid in the 2009 vote; the city had first bid for the 1936 Games without success.

Rio's first-ever Olympic bid, for the 1936 Games, lost out to which city?

Later attempts for 2004 and 2012 did not even make the candidate shortlist before the bid that finally succeeded.

The Formula One Brazilian Grand Prix was held at which Rio circuit from 1978 to 1989?

The track later hosted MotoGP and Champ Car races before the Grand Prix moved permanently to Interlagos.

Which locally invented beach sport combines football and volleyball?

Circles of players fill Ipanema's sand daily; frescobol, a kind of beach tennis, is the other homegrown favourite.

What did a Scottish textile worker have his wife bring from home for Brazil's first football match in 1894?

Thomas Donohoe's five-a-side game among British workers came six months before Charles Miller's better-known match elsewhere in Brazil.

The 1960s standard 'The Girl from Ipanema' was composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim and which lyricist?

Recordings by Astrud and João Gilberto, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald turned the beach neighbourhood into a global name.

Which music genre, whose signature song is 'The Girl from Ipanema', was born in Rio?

Funk Carioca, another Rio invention, grew out of 1970s American black pop into a distinct electronic style in the 1990s.

In the Tupi language, the name Ipanema is usually translated as meaning what?

The name originally belonged to a river in another state, homeland of the Baron of Ipanema who laid out the neighbourhood in 1883.

Copacabana is named for a chapel with a replica statue of Our Lady of Copacabana, patron saint of which country?

Before the mid-18th century the district was called Sacopenapã, Tupi for 'the way of the socós', a kind of heron.

Which landscape architect designed the wave pattern of the Copacabana promenade?

The four-kilometre Portuguese-pavement mosaic dates from the 1930s and was rebuilt in 1970.

Roughly how many people gather on Copacabana Beach every 31 December for the New Year celebration?

In January 2026 Guinness recognised it as the largest New Year's Eve celebration held by any city.

What colour do most revellers wear on Copacabana Beach on New Year's Eve?

Shaking and spraying chilled champagne at midnight is considered good luck; the party is second only to Carnival.

Which architect designed the Sambadrome, the parade avenue where samba schools compete each Carnival?

Completed in 1984, it was his first big commission after returning from exile, and it hides a primary school with 115 classrooms beneath the stands.

Rio Carnival is held every year immediately before which Christian season?

It is billed as the world's biggest Carnival, with two million people a day in the streets and more than 200 samba schools in five divisions.

The very first Rio masquerade ball, in 1840, featured which dances rather than samba?

Samba and batucada rhythms only took over in the early 20th century, brought by Afro-Brazilians and Pardos.

Which entrepreneur conceived the Rock in Rio festival, first held in 1985?

Its debut drew 1.5 million people, a figure that still makes it the largest music festival in the Latin world.

The tiled Escadaria Selarón in Lapa was created by an artist born in which country?

Jorge Selarón started covering the 215 steps outside his house in 1990 with tiles in the blue, green and yellow of the Brazilian flag; neighbours mocked him at first.

How many steps make up the Escadaria Selarón?

The 125-metre stairway carries more than 2,000 tiles from over 60 countries, some 300 of them hand-painted by Selarón with a pregnant African woman.

Rio's Tijuca forest was replanted in the 19th century because clearing it for which crop had hurt the water supply?

Between 1861 and 1887 six enslaved people under Major Archer planted more than 100,000 trees; it became a national park in 1961.

Rio's first favelas appeared after Mayor Pereira Passos demolished the downtown tenements known as what?

Displaced residents moved onto the hills; Passos also gave the city its Paris-inspired Theatro Municipal and National Library.

The 1904 Vaccine Revolt broke out against the compulsory public-health campaign of which physician?

Cruz's men also forced their way into homes to kill mosquitoes and rats; the popular uprising against him is a landmark of the Old Republic.

Which Rio-born author of Dom Casmurro is regarded as Brazil's greatest literary figure?

His Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (1881) is considered the founding work of Brazilian Realism.

Rio's Theatro Municipal, opened in 1909, was modelled on which famous European building?

Its two rooftop statues represent Poetry and Music, and a 1,000-pound crystal chandelier hangs beneath a painting of the 'Dance of the Hours'.

Which James Bond film is partly set in Rio, including a fight on the Sugarloaf cable car?

Other Rio films include Black Orpheus, Central Station, City of God and Elite Squad.

Rio's Metropolitan Cathedral, inaugurated in 1979, has what unusual shape?

Its interior is 96 metres across and holds up to 20,000 worshippers beneath four stained-glass windows that climb to the ceiling.

Which oil giant, one of Brazil's two largest corporations, is headquartered in Rio?

Mining company Vale and the Grupo Globo media conglomerate are also based in the city.

In 1992 Rio hosted which landmark United Nations conference?

The city followed up twenty years later with the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, dubbed Rio+20.

Rio has the largest Portuguese population outside which city?

In 1920, nearly 40 percent of all Portuguese living in Brazil were in Rio, and they made up 72 percent of the capital's foreigners.

Which World Heritage site in Rio was the landing place for hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans?

By 1840 the number of enslaved people in Rio had reached 220,000; the city was the main stage of Brazil's abolitionist movement later that century.

Tijuca is the world's second-largest urban forest; which Rio forest is the largest?

Both forests are in Rio: Pedra Branca sits in the West Zone and contains the city's highest peak, while Tijuca has been a national park since 1961.

In what year did Rio's Santa Teresa Tram, Latin America's oldest electric tramway, go electric?

Its gauge was altered so the cars could fit on top of the Carioca Aqueduct, and it was declared a national historic monument in 1985.

Roughly how long is the Rio-Niterói Bridge across Guanabara Bay?

It is the only direct road link between the two sides of the bay and carries about 150,000 vehicles a day, including over 7,000 trucks.

Roughly what share of Rio's population lives in its 813 favelas?

That is more than 1.3 million people, the second-highest favela population in Brazil though only the 11th-highest proportion.

Rio's Biblioteca Nacional holds collections totalling more than how many items?

It ranks among the largest libraries in the world, alongside city landmarks such as the Theatro Municipal and the National Museum of Fine Arts.