Mato Grosso

Chapada dos Guimarães

The terrain of Mato Grosso is varied and includes cliffs, canyons, and waterfalls. It is home to the Chapada dos Guimarães National Park, a unique environment of sandstone mountains that have eroded into amazingly varied terrain.

The biologically rich Pantanal, one of the world's largest wetland/prairie ecosystems, is also located within this state. Much environmental degradation has occurred to the Pantanal since the late 20th century because of development, and efforts to contain or slow it have had limited success. The Pantanal has a habitat similar to that of the Everglades in Florida in the United States, although the Pantanal is on a much larger scale.

Guaporé River in Mato Grosso

See also: History of Mato Grosso

The Bororo Indians live in the Mato Grosso area. As late as 1880, soldiers patrolled lands on the outskirts of Cuiabá, Mato Grosso's capital and largest city, to protect settlers from Bororo raids.

By the end of the 19th century, although severely reduced by disease and by warfare with explorers, slave traders, prospectors, settlers, and other indigenous groups, as many as five to ten thousand Bororo continued to occupy central and eastern Mato Grosso, as well as western Goiás.[4] The southwestern part of this state was ceded by Brazil to Bolivia in exchange for the then-Bolivian territory of Acre, according to the Treaty of Petrópolis in 1903.

This historically remote area attracted expeditions of exploration in the early 20th century that sought to find lost civilizations. A notable example was British Captain Percy Fawcett's expedition to find the Lost City of Z which he believed existed in the jungles of Brazil. Certain proponents of the Hollow Earth hypothesis speculated that the region had sites of access to the interior of the earth and its settlements.

In 1977, the state was split into two halves, and the neighboring state of Mato Grosso do Sul was created from the other part of its territory.

Mato Grosso had a high rate of population growth in the 20th century due to timber, ranching and agricultural development. The state as a whole has one of the lowest population densities of any Brazilian state. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 3,441,998 people resided in the state as of 2018. The population density was 3.8 inhabitants/km².

• Urbanization: 76.6% (2006)
• Population growth: 2.4% (1991–2000)
• Houses: 836,000 (2006)[5]

Ethnically, the state includes a relatively high proportion of caboclos (persons of mixed European and Indian ancestry), as do other areas of interior Brazil. The last PNAD (National Research for Sample of Domiciles) census revealed the following numbers: 1,532,000 Brown (Mixed) people (50.92%); 1,179,000 White people (39.16%); 239,000 Black people (7.93%); 41,000 Amerindian people (1.37%); and 14,000 Asian people (0.45%).[6]

Soy plantation in Mato Grosso

Cattle in Mato Grosso

Agriculture is the largest component of the state's GDP at 40.8%, followed by the service sector at 40.2%. The industrial sector represents 19% of the GDP (2004). Mato Grosso's major exports include soybeans (83%), wood (5.6%), meats (4.8%), and cotton (3.3%) (2002).

The state's share of the Brazilian economy is 1.8% (2014).

In 2020, Mato Grosso was the leader in the national grain production, with 28.0%.[8] It's the largest producer of soy in Brazil, with 26.9% of the total produced in 2020 (33.0 million tons); the largest producer of maize in the country;[9] the largest producer of cotton in Brazil, with around 65% of national production (1.8 out of the 2.8 million tons harvested in the country).;[10][11] the 6th largest producer of sugarcane in the country, 16 million tons harvested in the 2019/20 harvest.;[12][8] and the 3rd largest producer of beans, with 10.5% of Brazilian production.[8] In sunflower, the state was the largest national producer in 2019, with 60 thousand tons.[13] In cassava production, Brazil produced a total of 17.6 million tons in 2018. Mato Grosso produced 287 thousand tons at this year.[14]

In 2019, the cattle herd from Mato Grosso reached the mark of thirty million cattle, the largest cattle herd in the country, representing almost 14% of national production alone. In 2018, Mato Grosso was the fifth largest pork producer in the country, with a herd of around 2.5 million animals.[15][16][17][18]

In 2017, Mato Grosso had 1.15% of the national mineral participation (5th place in the country). Mato Grosso had production of gold (8.3 tons at a value of R$1 billion) and tin (536 tons at a value of R$16 million).[19] In addition, in gemstones, the state is the 2nd largest national producer of diamond, having extracted 49 thousand carats in the year 2017. The city of Juína is the main one in this activity in the state. The state also has a small production of sapphire and jasper.[20][21]

Mato Grosso had an industrial GDP of R$17.0 billion in 2017, equivalent to 1.4% of the national industry. It employs 141,121 workers in the industry. The main industrial sectors are: Construction (32.0%), Food (27.9%), Industrial Services of Public Utility, such as Electricity and Water (18.6%), Beverages (4.5%) and Oil Products Oil and Biofuels (3.9%). These 5 sectors concentrate 86.9% of the state's industry.[22]

• Vehicles: 1,614,797 (January 2015)
• Mobile phones: 4,500,000 (January 2015)
• Telephones: 527,000 (April 2007)
• Cities: 141 (2007)[23]

Federal University of Mato Grosso in Cuiabá

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

More than 58 universities are located in the state of Mato Grosso.[24]

Cuiabá is home to the following universities:

• Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT);
• Mato Grosso State University (Unemat);
• Universidade de Cuiabá (Unic).

Kuikuro Indians from Mato Grosso

The local culture is very rich due to the influences of and encounters with various cultures, such as indigenous peoples, colonial Spanish and other European settlers, Africans enslaved and transported there in the Atlantic slave trade, originally by the Portuguese, and other Europeans; and immigrants and settlers since the late 19th century. Two long periods of isolation also contributed to its development along different lines than the coastal areas of Brazil. Recent immigration has brought many urban influences to the state. Cuiabá has a rich cuisine influenced by natives. They have maintained traditional dances, craftwork and music.

Dance and music were traditionally connected to the worship of Catholic saints and their festivals, Saint Benedict (the city's patron saint) being one of the favorites.

Theatre of Federal University of Mato Grosso

The state flag has similar colors to the flag of Brazil, with blue symbolizing the sky, green the vegetation, and white standing for peace. The star is yellow to symbolize the gold which attracted the first settlers. The flag was adopted by Decree No. 2 of January 31, 1890, just a few days after the adoption of the national flag. The Mato Grosso state flag was abolished by Law No. 1.046 of October 8, 1929, but reinstated by article 140 of the Constitution of the State of Mato Grosso on July 11, 1947.

Arena Pantanal in Cuiabá.

Cuiabá was one of twelve cities chosen to host the games of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which took place in Brazil.

• Pantanal jaguar

• (in Portuguese) Official website of Mato Grosso