Pirapora
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pirapora is a municipality (município) in northcentral Minas Gerais in Brazil. Its population in 2004 was 52,326. The name Pirapora comes from the Tupi language and means place where the fish live.
- Became a city: 1911
- Elevation: 489 m
- Highest point of the municipality: 787 m.
- Area of the municipality: 577.3 km²
- Demographic density: 86,98 hab/km²
- Average annual temperature: 23.22ª
- Distance from the capital of Belo Horizonte: 323 km.
- Patron saint: São Gonçalo de Pirapora
- Economy: livestock raising, tourism, and agriculture
- CEP (postal code): 39270-000
The city is located on the banks of the great São Francisco River, the longest river to flow entirely inside Brazilian territory. Its history goes back to the colonial period of the bandeirantes and the gold panhandlers who folloed the river upstream and arrived at the rapids of Pirapora and founded the settlement of São Gonçalo das Tabocas. In 1911 the small Arraial de São Gonçalo de Pirapora became the seat of a municipality and its name was shorted to Pirapora. Its street plan was laid out in the form of a chess set, inspired by the new capital of Belo Horizonte, and the streets were given names of Brazilian states.
There are highway connections with the main federal highway, the BR 040, to the west. In 1910 the railroad came up from the south and reached Pirapora, with a bridge (694 m) being built across the river. There were plans to extend the line to the coast. At the end of the nineteen seventies the line was disactivated, but the bridge and the rails still remain.
Today the river has lost its economic importance and is mainly used by tourist boats that attempt to recreate the spirit of the past, when Mississippi style riverboats were used to go as far as Juazeiro in Bahia. These boats used charcoal, which contributed to the disappearance of the vegetation along the river. One of the old paddlewheel steamboats can still be seen anchored in front of the city and is a major tourist site.
There is a campus of the State University of Montes Claros in the city.
