Rio de Janeiro

<p>Brazil, Rio de Janiero, 1838. Image courtsey of ancestry images.com</p>

The city of Rio de Janeiro is located on the Atlantic coast of Brazil, but it faces south on Guanabara Bay. The city is characterised by mountains and hills that are offshoots of the Serra do Mar to the north-west. Being close to the Tropic of Capricorn, Rio de Janeiro’s tropical climate made it a popular revictualing station for nineteenth-century sailing ships. In Portuguese, the name ‘Rio de Janeiro’ means ‘January River’ and the city is so named because Portuguese explorers first entered Guanabara Bay on 1 January 1502.

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