Goiânia

Goiânia (ɡɔɪˈɑːniə; ɡojˈjɐniɐ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Goiás. With a population of 1,536,097, it is the second-largest city in the Central-West Region and the 10th-largest in the country. Its metropolitan area has a population of 2,654,860, making it the 12th-largest in Brazil. With an area of approximately , it has a continuous geography with few hills and lowlands, with flat lands in most of its territory, especially the Meia Ponte River, in addition to Botafogo and Capim Puba streams. Goiânia has its origins as a planned city, founded on October 24, 1933 by then Governor Pedro Ludovico to serve as the new state capital and administrative center. Before this, the state capital was the town of Goiás. It is the second most populous city in the Central-West Region, only surpassed by the country's capital Brasília, located about from Goiânia. The city is an important economic hub of the region and is considered a strategic center for such areas as industry, medicine, fashion and agriculture. Goiânia has previously been described as having the largest green area per inhabitant in Brazil and the second-most in the world, after Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. With rapid population growth and urban expansion, satellite imagery shows the majority of the green area is now at the periphery of its sprawling city limits, and the per-capita green area claim may need to be reviewed. The idea of creating a new state capital had been bounced around from early on in the state of Goiás. The first plan came from D. Marcos de Noronha who in 1753 wanted to establish the state capital in the municipality of Pirenópolis; again in 1863 José Vieira Couto de Magalhães put forward a plan to move the capital to the edge of the Araguaia river. The impetus behind the efforts to move the state capital was the need to locate it in accordance with the economic interests of the state. The first state capital, Vila Boa (today City of Goiás), had been chosen when the economy was based on gold extraction.