Gallery image information
Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers ©
Title: / 1. View from top of Half-way mountain with Copacabana beachDate: / 1931
Origin: / H Skellington
Information: / Fronted by beach and backed by steep hills, Copacabana is for the greater part no more than 4 blocks wide. Crammed into this narrow strip of land are 25,000 people per sq mile, one of the highest population densities in the world. Copacabana is the centre of Brazil's tourism. With the building of the grand luxury resort hotels, the Gloria in 1922 and the Copacabana Palace in 1924, Rio became a hot spot for Hollywood celebrities and international high society during the 1950s.
Title: / 2. Rio de Janeiro
Date: / 1931
Origin: / Luftschiffbau Zeppelin
Information: / "Flying into Rio is exciting. Flying in along the coast you clearly see the escarpment, a 2000-metre wall rising sharply a few km from the coast. As the plane starts to come in for a landing you can make out the famous granite outcrops you've seen so often on travel posters: Pao de Acucar (Sugar Loaf) and Corcovado topped by Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) with his arms outstretched. You can almost touch the famous mosaic pavements of Copacabana as you pass its sweeping curve and enter Baia de Guanabara."
Rio de Janeiro, Lonely Planet City Guide, 2004
Title: / 3. View of Copacabana from Pau Acucar
Date: / 1990
Origin: / Chris Caldicott
Information: / The area of Copacabana shares its name with the beach in front of the famous city neighbourhood. In colonial times, wealthy Portuguese plantation owners would bring their families here for a weekend outing. Today, Copacabana has a huge mixture of people with different backgrounds and paypackets. At 25,000 people per square metre, it also has one of the highest population densities in the world. With space at a premium, rich residents live in high-rise apartment blocks that line the beachfront. Many of these apartments are now holiday homes for the very rich of Sao Paulo.
Title: / 4. Sugar Loaf from the International Hotel
Date: / 1911
Origin: / E B Gibbes
Information: / One of the most striking aspects of Rio is its spectacular setting hemmed in by steep mountain ranges known as serras. The slopes of the serras are made of resistant granite that have withstood millions of years of erosion by water and the wind. Soaring 394 metres (1293 feet) above the streets in the heart of Rio is Sugar Loaf mountain. The Portuguese named it Sugar Loaf as they thought it resembled the moulds used to set sugar cane. Today, both residents and tourists can take a cable car 394 metres (1293 feet) to the summit to soak in the breathtaking views of the city.
Title: / 5. Rio de Janeiro
Date: / 1920-29
Origin: / P Ness
Information: / After Rio became the capital of the country in 1889, in the city centre villas and mansions became schools or housing for poor people. It was a place of narrow streests and alleys and low houses. The mayor of the city in 1902 decided to demolish the large areas to give space to wide green avenues. New areas were developed and the city was modernised. Rio expanded in all directions; some of the existing hills in the city centre where the town was founded, were cleared, and other hills were occupied by people left homeless by the demolitions. Some of the poor were pushed to the suburbs, increasing the demand for social housing.
Title: / 6. Aerial view of Rio de Janeiro
Date: / 1931
Origin: / Luftschiffbau Zeppelin
Information: / Industrialisation attracted new migrant populations to the city. The number of people living in the city doubled in 10 years reaching 2,380,000 in 1930. From the 1930s onwards the industries moved away to the suburbs. People had to commute from the centre to the suburbs and transport problems became frequent.
Title: / 7. View from Guanabara Bay, Corcovado and Gloria Church
Date: / 1870
Origin: / Charles W Browne
Information: / Charles W Browne was a midshipman. A local assistant recovered Browne's drawings, after he died on an expedition on the Zambezi.
The site of Rio de Janeiro was founded by Portuguese explorers as they entered Guanabara Bay (or 'arm of the sea') on the first of January, 1502. Since the bay was considered the mouth of a river, the city was named in honor of the day, Rio de Janeiro, or 'River of January'. French traders also settled in the Guanabara Bay area in an attempt to gain economic and strategic foothold in Brazil.
Title: / 8. La Gloria and Sugar Loaf from Marine Parade
Date: / 1900-12
Origin: / F Tuckett
Information: / Rio de Janeiro became the capital of Brazil in 1889. A public transport system established in the mid 19th century allowed the city to expand to new areas like Tijuca and Sao Cristovao in the north and Botafogo and Laranjeiras in the south. The trams and the trains made it possible for people to move from the city centre, starting a pattern that allowed the rich to move to the south close to the coast, whereas the train that went inland to the suburbs pushed the poorer groups from the city centre to the north.
Title: / 9. Gloria Church, Rio de Janeiro
Date: / 1900-12
Origin: / F Tuckett
Information: / Looking over the bairro (suburb) that bears its name, this baroque church was the favourite of Dom Pedro II. He was married and his daughter, Princesca Isabel, was baptised here. The church, built in 1714, had its altar carved by Mestre Valentim. On 15 August, worshippers celebrate the Festa de NS Da Gloria de Outeiro.
Title: / 10. Entrance to the bay of Rio de Janeiro
Date: / 1873-76
Origin: / James W Wells
Information: / "As the noble vessel dances over the blue waves to the shining islands in the distance, the excitement continually increases. Telescopes are produced; the palms are seen waving over the sea-borne rocks; and that yes, that is the renowned Sugarloaf. We slide between a twin pair of granite islands rising abruptly from the sea, covered with palms and cactus and innumerable green shrubs stretching down towards the water, and presently we see the narrow entrance to the harbour."
Thomas Woodbine Hinchliff, South American Sketches; or A Visit to Rio de Janeiro, the Organ Mountains, La Plata, and the Parana (London, 1863)
Title: / 11. Rio de Janeiro harbour
Date: / 1900-12
Origin: / F Tuckett
Information: / "Then comes the city itself , covering not only the water-side, but numbers of low hills immediately behind, above which a range of luxuriant mountains culminates in the sharp needle-like point of the Corcovado, 2,100 feet above the level of the sea. The harbour, though entered by the narrow gateway between the fort and the Sugarloaf, is about 21 miles in length, and 18 in width at its upper end; it is in fact, a lovely lake, studded with exquisite islands, and surrounded by forest-clad hills; high above which, at a distance of 30 or 40 miles from the city, rise the fantastic peaks and pillars of the Organ mountains, soaring faintly through the haze to a height of 7,000 or 8,000 feet."
Thomas Woodbine Hinchliff, South American Sketches; or A Visit to Rio Janeiro, the Organ Mountains, La Plata, and the Parana (London 1863)
Title: / 12. A Fashionable Promenade in Rio de Janeiro
Date: / 1911
Origin: / E B Gibbes
Information: / "There is in the city an air of bustle and activity quite agreeable to our European eyes; yet the Portuguese all take their siesta after dinner. There is not much formal visiting among the English, but a good deal of quiet tea-drinking, and now and then parties formed to dine out of doors in the cool weather.
In short, my countrywomen here are a discreet sober set of persons, with not more than a reasonable share of good or bad. They go pretty regularly to church on Sundays, for we have a pretty protestant chapel in Rio, served by a respectable clergymen; meet after church to luncheon and gossip: some go afterwards to the opera, others play cards, and some few stay at home, or ride out with their husbands, and instruct themselves and families by reading; and all this much as it happens in Europe."
Maria Graham nee Callcott, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil and Residence There during part of the years 1821, 1822, 1823 (London, 1824)
Title: / 13. Rio de Janeiro
Date: / 1911
Origin: / E B Gibbes
Information: / Rio de Janeiro became the capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarve in 1808 and with it received many economic and urban improvements. The opening of the port changed the city into an important post on international maritime routes. Independence in 1822 and the wealth created by coffee brought new improvements to the capital and with the construction of the railway connecting the inland agricultural areas with the newly built port, the population continued to grow.
Title: / 14. View of Rio de Janeiro
Date: / 1990
Origin: / Chris Caldicott
Information: / Rio remained the political capital of Brazil until 1960, when the capital was moved to Brasilia. During the 1960s, lots of modern skyscrapers went up in the city, and some of Rio's most beautiful buildings were lost. A hotel building boom along the beaches saw the rise of the big hotels like the Sheraton, Rio Palace and the Meridian. During the same period, the favelas were becoming overcrowded with people from poverty-stricken areas of the north-east and interior.
Title: / 15. Downtown Rio
Date: / 1990
Origin: / Embassy of Brazil
Information: / After Sao Paulo, the state of Rio de Janeiro is Brazil's largest industrial producer, and continues to have a fast rate of industrial growth. Situated in Brazil's richest region, 65 per cent of the country's trade, 40 per cent of its agricultural production and 70 per cent of the cargo transported is within a 500km radius of the city. Rio has well established manufacturing industries in cars, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and shipbuilding.
Title: / 16. Rio de Janeiro
Date: / 1920-29
Origin: / P Ness
Information: / The city in the late 1920s housed around 2 million people. The first urban plan, Plan Agache, was developed at this time. The areas of Ipanema, Leblon, and Gavea (in the south) were reserved for the upper classes, while the suburbs were left for the working classes. This was the first official document to deal with the problem of favelas, suggesting their removal.
Title: / 17. Rio de Janeiro at night
Date: / 1920-29
Origin: / P Ness
Information: / For more than 80 years the beaches have been Rio's heart and soul, providing a constant source of income and recreation for the 'cariocas', the inhabitants of the city. Brazil has one of the longest continuous coastlines in the world, 7700km, much of it sandy beach.
Title: / 18. Botafogo Inlet
Date: / 1990
Origin: / Chris Caldicott
Information: / It is the beaches in Rio where visitors spend most of their time. The city's beaches begin in Guanabara Bay and stretch out to the Atlantic Ocean in an uninterrupted sequence. First come Flamengo and Botafogo, followed by Urca and Praia Vermelha. Leme Beach stretches into Copacabana, Brazil's most famous beach. South are Diabo Beach, Ipanema Beach followed by Leblon Beach.
Title: / 19. Rio at dusk
Date: / 1990
Origin: / Chris Caldicott
Information: / The story of Rio is a tale of two cities. The Serra divide the city into two halves. To the north, the zona norte is home to poorer communities that live in the polluted industrial region. Richer residents live between the mountains and the sea and the zona sul. Elsewhere, poorer people livein housing projects or in housing areas built illegally on hillsides or in ravines. These shanty towns, or favelas, are scattered across the city. Yet, along the beachfront in zona sul, residents enjoy one of the most luxurious lifestyles in the world.
Title: / 20. View from the Corcorado railway
Date: / 1873-76
Origin: / James W Wells
Information: / James Wells was a railway engineer, best known for his book Exploring and travelling three thousand miles through Brazil from Rio de Janeiro to Maranho (2 vols, London, 1886), a record of his travels in 1875-6.
"Every turn in our ride brought a new and varied landscape into view: beneath, the sugar-cane in luxuriant growth; above, the ripening orange and the palm; around and scattered through the plain enlivened by the windings of the Guazindiba, the lime, the guava, and a thousand odorous and splendid shrubs, beautified the path."
Maria Graham nee Callcott, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil and Residence There during part of the years 1821, 1822, 1823 (London, 1824)
Title: / 21. Rio de Janeiro - a chacara (suburban villa)
Date: / 1873-76
Origin: / James W Wells
Information: / "Close round the shoulder of the Sugarloaf is the shining bay of Botafogo, the banks of which are covered with white villas, glittering in the sun like diamonds among the emerald-green vegetation."
Thomas Woodbine Hinchliff, South American Sketches; or A Visit to Rio Janeiro, the Organ Mountains, La Plata, and the Parana (London, 1863)
Title: / 22. Mount Theresopolis in the Organ
Date: / 1900-12
Origin: / F Tuckett
Information: / "The city of Rio is more like an European city than either Bahia or Pernambuco; the houses are 3 or 4 stories high, with projecting roofs and tolerably handsome. The streets are narrow, few being wider than that of the Corso at Rome, to which one or two bear a resemblance in their general air, and especially on days of festivals, when the windows and balconies are decorated with crimson, yellow, or green damask hangings."
Maria Graham nee Callcott, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil and Residence There during part of the years 1821, 1822, 1823 (London, 1824)
Title: / 23. Bay of Ichary, Rio de Janeiro
Date: / 1873-76
Origin: / James W Wells
Information: / Under Portuguese rule, Rio was used as a first stop for slaves brought over from West Africa. The Portuguese needed more workers to harvest the planations inland. Plantation crops like sugar cane exchanged hands in the city and were shipped back to Europe from the city's port. Gold from the mines in Minas Gerais state also made its way to the city port as city traders made more connections with outposts like Ichary Bay up and down the coast.
Title: / 24. 3000 Miles through Brazil
Date: / 1873-76
Origin: / James W Wells
Information: / James Wells was a railway engineer, best known for his book Exploring and travelling three thousand miles through Brazil from Rio de Janeiro to Maranho (2 vols, London, 1886), a record of his travels in 1875-6. An album of original pen and ink drawings and watercolours was produce by Wells in Brazil some of which were reproduced in his book. Although it was common for nineteenth-century travel books to feature illustrations, the location of the original drawings is not always known.
Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers ©