Volta Redonda
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Volta Redonda is the name of a city in the Rio de Janeiro state of Brazil with 182,81 km² of area, located from 350m to 707m from the sea level (22º31'23" S, 44º06'15" W) and with a population of 258.145 inhabitants (estimated in 2006). The area around the city has nearly 700,000. Its name, Portuguese for round turn, is due to the shape of a curve in the Paraíba do Sul river around which the city was built.
[edit] History
In 1744, the first tamers named the curious curve of the Paraíba do Sul river of Volta Redonda. Big farms were installed in the region and some farm names are the names of some districts nowadays.
Between the years of 1860 and 1870, the navigation through the Paraíba do Sul river had its golden period between the cities of Resende and Barra do Piraí and at the same time the railroad D. Pedro II was built in Barra do Piraí and Barra Mansa.
With these facts, in 1875, the village of Santo Antônio de Volta Redonda started to have great impulse. With the freedom of slaves in 1888, the decay of the Vale do Paraíba became visible, destroying the agriculture, that would not recover more satisfactorily.
This situation would be reverted in 1941, when the cycle of industrialization of Volta Redonda began. Chosen as local for installation of the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) steel mill in the middle of World War II, it marked the base of Brazilian industrialization. Laborers from diverse regions of the country came to Volta Redonda to work in the mill. When it opened in 1946, it was the first steel mill in South America.
A heavily subsidized symbol of national pride, the Volta Redonda mill embodied the import substitution industrial policies that prevailed in Latin American economies from World War II until the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s. Since its 1993 privatization, however, the mill--now known as the Presidente Vargas Steelworks--has transcended its dirigiste origins to become one of the world's most efficient steel production facilities.
[edit] Sports
Volta Redonda Futebol Clube is the most important football club of the city, playing its home matches at Estádio Raulino de Oliveira, which is also located in the city.
