Bogota | |
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State | |
Country | Colombia |
Capital | |
Population | 8181047 |
Postcode | 110321 |
Bogotá (, also UK:, US:, Spanish: [boɣoˈta] (listen)), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and previously known as Santa Fe de Bogotá during the time of this colony and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital and largest city of Colombia, administered as the Capital District, and the capital of the department of Cundinamarca. Bogotá is a territorial entity of the first order, with the same administrative status as the departments of Colombia. It is the political, economical, industrial and administrative center of the nation.
Bogotá was founded as the capital of the New Kingdom of Granada on 6 August 1538, by Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada following a harsh expedition into the Andes conquering the Muisca. The Muisca were the indigenous inhabitants of the region, and they called the place of the foundation"Thybzaca" or"Old Town". The title of Bogotá corresponds to the Spanish pronunciation of the Chibcha Bacatá (or Mueketá) that was the title of a neighboring settlement located between the modern towns of Funza and Cota. There are different opinions about the meaning of the word Bacatá, the most accepted being that it signifies"walling of the farmland" in the Chibcha language. Another popular translation argues that it signifies"The Lady of the Andes". Moreover, the word'Andes' in the Aymara language means"shining mountain", thus rendering the full lexical signification of Bogotá as"The Lady of the shining mountain" (notice, however, that the language of the Muisca people wasn't Aymara however Chibcha). Others indicate that Bacatá was the title of the Muisca cacique who governed the land before the Spaniards arrived. Jiménez de Quesada gave the settlement the name of"Our Lady of Hope" but the Spanish crown gave it the title of Santafé (Holy Faith) in 1540 when it was appointed as a city.Santafé became the seat of the government of the Spanish Royal Audiencia of the New Kingdom of Granada (made in 1550), and then after 1717 it was the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. Following the Battle of Boyacá on 7 August 1819, Bogotá became the capital of the independent nation of Gran Colombia. It was Simón Bolívar who rebaptized the city with the title of Bogotá, as a means of honoring the Muisca people and as an emancipation act towards the Spanish crown.
Belo Horizonte | |
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State | Minas Gerais |
Country | Brazil |
Capital | |
Population | 0 |
Belo Horizonte (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈbɛlu oɾiˈzõtʃi], locally [ˌbɛloɾiˈzõtʃi] (listen); "Beautiful Horizon") is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropolis is anchor to the Belo Horizonte metropolitan area, ranked as the third-most populous metropolitan area in Brazil and the 17th-most populous in the Americas. Belo Horizonte is the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil's second-most populous state. It is the first planned modern city in Brazil.
The region was first settled in the early 18th century, but the city as it is known today was planned and constructed in the 1890s, to replace Ouro Preto as the capital of Minas Gerais. The city features a mixture of contemporary and classical buildings, and is home to several modern Brazilian architectural icons, most notably the Pampulha Complex. In planning the city, Aarão Reis and Francisco Bicalho sought inspiration in the urban planning of Washington, D.
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