Santa Rita do Sapucaí

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] History

Santa Rita do Sapucaí is a small town in the southern region of Minas Gerais state (MG) in Brazil. Traditionally, the founding date of Santa Rita is considered to be 1825-05-22, when the first mass was held in the chapel built on orders by Dona Genoveva Maria Martins da Fonseca, honoring a promise made by her late husband Manoel Jose da Fonseca. The Fonseca family arrived in the region in the early 1800s and is considered the founding family of Santa Rita.

[edit] Location

Santa Rita is located in a privileged site, a few hundred kilometers away from the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, in one of Minas Gerais' richest regions.

[edit] Economy

Although located in a rich coffee-growing region, Santa Rita is known for its high technology industries, being home to one of Brazil's foremost electronic, telecommunications and computer engineering colleges, INATEL - Instituto Nacional de Telecomunicações, founded in 1965, Escola Técnica de Eletrônica "Francisco Moreira da Costa", the first of the Latin América, founded in 1959. The city possesses today more than 110 companies of technological base.