Aragarças

Aragarças
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Municipality of Aragarças in Goiás Aragarças Location of the municipality in Goiás
Basic data
State :	Brazil (BRA)
Administrative structure :	Midwest
State :	Goiás (GO)
Mesoregion :	Northwest Goiás
Microregion :	Aragarças (GO)
Geographic location :	15 ° 54 ′  S , 52 ° 15 ′  W Coordinates: 15 ° 54 ′  S , 52 ° 15 ′  W
Time zone :	UTC -3 summer : UTC-2
Height :	310  m
Area :	711.649 km²
Residents :	18,310
Population density :	25.7 inhabitants / km²
Telephone code :	+5562
Post code ( CEP ):	76240-000
Address of the municipal administration:
Official Website:	www.aragarcas.go.gov.br
Anniversary:	October 2nd
founding year	1953
politics
mayor	Marcos Antonio de Oliveira (PT) (2009–2012)

Aragarças , officially Município de Aragarças , is a Brazilian political municipality in the state of Goiás in the mesoregion of Northwest Goiás and in the micro-region of the same name Aragarças . It is located west of the Brazilian capital Brasília and west-northwest of the capital Goiânia .

Geographical location

Administrative structure

Aragarças borders

• in the north to the municipality of Araguiania MG
• to the east on Montes Claros de Goiás
• to the south at Bom Jardim de Goiás
• in the southwest at Baliza
• to the west at Pontal do Araguaia and Barra do Garças (both MG)

Geographical breakdown

Aragarças forms together with Barra do Garças and Pontal do Araguaia a coherent, urban settlement area. The municipality is located on the eastern bank of the Rio Araguaia , the border river between Goiás and Mato Grosso, at the confluence of its left tributary Rio Garças , the border river between Pontal do Araguaia and Barra do Garças. Two bridges on the Brazilian federal highway BR-070 connect the three communities.

history

Diamond prospectors were the first to penetrate the Araguaiana area in 1872 . They were massacred by the indigenous Bororós tribe living there.
In 1933 the news of the discovery of giant diamond stones encouraged many miners to venture inland.

From the 1940s Aragarças was the starting point for the movement westward march ( Portuguese Marcha para o Oeste ) that the government of President Getúlio Vargas was proclaimed. The aim of the movement was the cultivation and development of the then largely unknown and isolated Midwest of Brazil (at that time still called hinterland ). In 1943 the Roncador-Xingu expedition was founded, based in Aragarças. The expedition was subordinate to the Central Brazil Foundation (Portuguese: Fundação Brasil Central (FBC)), which was founded in the same year and whose objective was the establishment of settlements. In the course of this, the airport with an asphalt runway with radio and weather station, hotels, many streets and the two reinforced concrete bridges that connect Goiás with Mato Grosso were built.

See also

• Mesoregions and micro-regions in Goiás

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 2010 census, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística ( IBGE ; PDF; 29 kB) (Portuguese)
2. ↑ ^{a b} IBGE library: History of Aracarças (Portuguese; PDF; 9 kB)
3. ↑ Prefeitura Municipal de Aragarças: Diamond find from 1933 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Portuguese). 
4. ↑ Manuel Ferreira Lima jr, Catholic University of Goiás: Aragarças: A cidade encantada no sertão de Goiás (Portuguese; PDF; 153 kB)