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Brazilian Federal District
Capital (and largest city)		Brasília
Demonym		Brasiliense or Distrital
Government
-	Governor	José Roberto Arruda
-	Vice Governor	Paulo Octávio
Area
-	Total	5.801,937 km² (27th)
Population
-	2006 estimate	2,383,784 (20th)
-	2005 census	2,337,078
-	Density	410,9/km² (1st)
GDP		2004 estimate
-	Total	R$ 43,521,629,016 (9th)
-	Per capita	R$ 34,510 (1st)
HDI (2000)		0.844 (high) (1st)
Abbreviation		BR-DF
Time zone		BRT (UTC-3)
-	Summer (DST)	BRST (UTC-2)

The Brazilian Federal District (Portuguese: Distrito Federal ^[1]) is set apart for Brasília, the capital of Brazil. Located in the State of Goiás, in a region called Planalto Central, the Distrito Federal is divided in 19 administrative regions. Brasilia - place where the three branches of the Federal Government are located - is the main attraction of this dry area and climate with only two seasons. During the dry season, the humidity can reach critical levels, mainly in the pick hours of the hottest days. The artificial lake of Paranoá, with almost 40 km² and 500 million m³ of water, was built exactly to minimize the severe climatic conditions of the winter. The region also attracts místicos and in its surroundings you find many temples of different religions and sectarian groups.

Contents 1 History 2 Demographics 2.1 Ethnic groups 3 Tourism and recreation 4 Economy 5 Curiosity 6 Education 6.1 Colleges and Universities 7 Infrastructure 7.1 International Airport 7.2 Metro 8 Sports 9 Sports 10 Flag 11 Voting rights 12 References 13 See also

The government was transferred to Distrito Federal in April 21, 1960, which was then split off from Goiás (major part) and Minas Gerais. Before the transfer, the Brazilian Federal District used to be the municipality of Rio de Janeiro. After the transfer, the municipality of Rio de Janeiro became the Estado da Guanabara (State of Guanabara), which existed from 1960 until 1975 when the State of Guanabara and the State of Rio de Janeiro merged, to be named the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Originally, the majority of the population consisted of local workers who built the capital (called "Candangos") and federal government employees who were transferred to the new capital, Brasília. The capital is a thoroughly planned city with designated areas for residence, business, schools etc. No streets have names, but are identified instead by letters and numbers arranged in a geographical system. Originally built for up to one million inhabitants, the city has recently grown way past this number. Due to its complex organization, the growth of the city itself has been slow. This has forced many to settle in neighboring cities around Brasília, which now house a significant percentage of the population of the Distrito Federal.

According to the IBGE of 2007, there were 2,393,000 people residing in the Brazilian Federal District. The population density was 410,9 inh./km². The last PNAD (National Research for Sample of Domiciles) census revealed the following numbers: 1,160,605 million Pardo people (48.5%), 1,052,920 million White people (44.0%), 157 thousand Black people (6.6%), 21 thousand Asian or Amerindian people (0.9%).^[2]

The majority of the Whites of the Brazilian Federal District are of Portuguese, Italian and German descent. The Pardos are a mixture of Europeans with the Blacks and/or Amerindians, varying from light to dark complexion. The Blacks are of African descent. The Asians are mostly Japanese and the Amerindians are the indigenous inhabitants.

Urbanization: 94.8% (2004); Population growth: 2.8% (1991-2000); Houses: 675.709 (2005).

Source: PNAD.

The City Park – Sarah Kubitschek

Located inside the city’s Pilot Plan, the “Parque da Cidade” (City Park”), extends over four million square meters. It includes landscape works of Burle Marx, and wall tiles that decorate restrooms in the Park designed by Athos Bulcão. Equipped with sports courts, a horse track, a racing kart track, skate tracks, playgrounds for children, bicycle tracks and trails for walks and jogging, the City Park attracts hundreds of people everyday, specially on weekends. The Park’s main entrance is located in the Monumental Axle South, but there are secondary exits that lead to other areas in the city’s South Wing.

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Brasilia

Designed by Oscar Niemeyer, it was inaugurated in 1970. Its shape is rounded, and structured around 16 curved pillars filled with beautiful stained glass works, designed by Marianne Peretti – their disposition ensures natural lighting into the aisle, built below street level. Around the church, in the outside area, visitors can see Alfredo Ceschiatti’s sculptures – the four evangelists – and inside, suspended angels. There are also paintings by Di Cavalcanti, representing the stages of the Passion of Christ, and paintings by Athos Bulcão. The Cathedral is located in the Monumental Axle, at the entry of the Ministries Plateau.

The “Three Powers Square”

Praça dos Três Poderes concentrates some of the most important and significant buildings in the work and career of Oscar Niemeyer – the Planalto Palace, headquarters of Brazilian Presidency; the National Congress, hosting the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate; and the Higher Courts of Justice. The Square also hosts: the “Panteão da Pátria” (the Fatherland Banner), the Lúcio Costa Space and three important sculptures – “Pombal”, by Niemeyer; “Justice”, by Alfredo Ceschiatti; and “Os Candangos”, by Bruno Giorgi. In the central plaza a National Banner with 286 square meters is supported by a 100-meter high pole. It is located at the end of the Ministries Plateau.

The service sector is the largest component of GDP at 92.5%, followed by the industrial sector at 7.1%. Agriculture represents 0.4% of GDP (2004). Brazilian Federal District exports: soybean 77.1% and gold 16.4% (2002).

Participation in the Brazilian economy: 2.5% (2004).^[3]

Vehicles: 830.379 (jan./2006); Mobile phones: 2.8 million (2006); Telephones: 897 thousand (2006); Cities: 1 (2006).

Portuguese is the official national language, and thus the primary language taught in schools. But English and Spanish are part of the official high school curriculum.

• Centro Universitário de Brasília (UniCEUB);
• Universidade Católica de Brasília (UCB);
• Universidade de Brasília (UnB);
• Centro Universitário do Distrito Federal (UniDF);
• Centro Universitário Euroamericano (UNIEURO);
• Instituto de Educação Superior de Brasília (IESB);
• União Pioneira da Integração Social (UPIS);
• Universidade Paulista (UniP).
• and many others.

Brasília International Airport is the third largest in Brazil in terms of passenger movement. Because of its strategic location it is considered a civil aviation hub for the rest of the country. This makes for a large number of takeoffs and landings and it is not unusual flights to have to wait in the holding pattern to land. Following the airport's master plan, Infraero is building a second runway, which will be finished in early 2005. In 2003 the fourth phase was completed of the passenger terminal expansion, which raised its capacity to 7.4 million passengers a year. The main building's third floor, with 12 thousand square meters, has a panoramic deck, a food court, shops, four movie theaters with total capacity of 500 people, and space for exhibitions. All told there are 136 shop spaces at the Brasília Airport.

Brasília Metro is the metro system in Brasília. It is operated by Metrô-DF (Companhia do Metropolitano do Distrito Federal). and was opened in 2001. The system has ten stations on two lines, in operation from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM, Mondays to Fridays, and covering most of the metropolitan area. Its main problem is the sheer distance between stations, making it a small component of the transit system of Brasília, where a disfunctional bus network is still predominant. The community of Águas Claras is well served by the subway, making it one of the fastest-growing areas of Brasília.

Free Flying

Brasília is known as a departing point for the practice of free flying sports, a sport that may be practiced with Hang Gliding or Paragliding wings. Practitioners of such sports reveal that, because of the city’s dry weather, the city offers strong thermal winds and great “cloud-streets” – which is also the name for a manoeuvre quite appreciated by practitioners. The national capital hosted the 14th Hang Gliding World Championship – one of the categories of free flying – in 2003. And in 2005, from August 21st to 27th, it will host the 2nd stage of the Brazilian Hang Gliding Championship.

Brasília is one of the 18 remaining candidates to host games of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, for which Brazil is the only South American bidder.

The white color symbolizes peace, while the green and yellow colors in the middle refer to the national colors of Brazil. The four yellow arrows symbolize the native people of Brazil, their pointing into the four cardinal directions of the compass stands for the power emanating from the center. The yellow arrows also form a cross, which symbolizes the Southern Cross carried by Pedro Álvares Cabral. With their feathers they form a lozenge in the middle, another reference to the national flag of Brazil.

The flag was created by the poet and herald Guilherme de Almeida, and was adopted by decree no. 1090 from August 25, 1969.

Residents of the Federal District elect eight representatives and three senators.

• (English) Brazil
• (Portuguese) Official Website
• (English) Brazilian Tourism Portal
• (English) Map of the Brazilian Federal District
• (English) List of cities in Brazil (all cities and municipalities)

v • d • e Regions and States of Brazil
Brazilian Federal District
North	Acre · Amapá · Amazonas · Pará · Rondônia · Roraima · Tocantins
Northeast	Alagoas · Bahia · Ceará · Maranhão · Paraíba · Pernambuco · Piauí · Rio Grande do Norte · Sergipe
Center-West	Goiás · Mato Grosso · Mato Grosso do Sul
Southeast	Espírito Santo · Minas Gerais · Rio de Janeiro · São Paulo
South	Paraná · Rio Grande do Sul · Santa Catarina

Coordinates: 15°46′48″S, 47°55′48″W