Mato Grosso

Chapada dos Guimarães National Park

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.

Pantanal scenery in 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 10 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.

Cuiabá, capital and financial center of the state, in 2022.

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]

Largest cities

Largest cities or towns in Mato Grosso (2011 census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics)[7]
	Rank		Mesoregion	Pop.	Rank		Mesoregion	Pop.
Cuiabá Várzea Grande	1	Cuiabá	Centro-Sul	556,298	11	Lucas do Rio Verde	Norte	47,570	Rondonópolis Sinop
	2	Várzea Grande	Centro-Sul	255,448	12	Pontes e Lacerda	Sudoeste	41,741
	3	Rondonópolis	Sudeste	198,949	13	Juína	Norte	39,350
	4	Sinop	Norte	116,013	14	Juara	Norte	36,168
	5	Cáceres	Centro-Sul	88,427	15	Barra do Bugres	Norte	33,034
	6	Tangará da Serra	Sudoeste	84,076	16	Campo Verde	Centro-Sul	32,692
	7	Sorriso	Norte	68,894	17	Guarantã do Norte	Norte	32,524
	8	Barra do Garças	Nordeste	56,903	18	Nova Mutum	Centro-Sul	32,134
	9	Primavera do Leste	Sudeste	53,003	19	Poconé	Centro-Sul	31,856
	10	Alta Floresta	Norte	49,331	20	Peixoto de Azevedo	Centro-Sul	31,169

Education

Campus of the 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.[8]

Cuiabá is home to the following universities:

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

Rondonópolis also has the Federal University of Ronodonópolis (UFR), formerly a part of UFMT until 2018.

Soy plantation in Brasnorte

Cattle in Mato Grosso

Plantation area in Mato Grosso

Amaggi Group Headquarters in Cuiabá

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%.[9] 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;[10] 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).;[11][12] the sixth largest producer of sugarcane in the country, 16 million tons harvested in the 2019/20 harvest.;[13][9] and the third largest producer of beans, with 10.5% of Brazilian production.[9] In sunflowers, the state was the largest national producer in 2019, with 60,000 tons.[14] In cassava production, Brazil produced a total of 17.6 million tons in 2018. Mato Grosso produced 287,000 tons at this year.[15]

In 2019, the cattle herd from Mato Grosso reached the mark of 30 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.[16][17][18][19]

In 2017, Mato Grosso had 1.15% of the national mineral participation (fifth 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).[20] In addition, in gemstones, the state is the second largest national producer of diamond, having extracted 49,000 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.[21][22]

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 five sectors concentrate 86.9% of the state's industry.[23]

Flag 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.

• 
  Paraguay River
• 
  Lagoon of Araras
• 
  Canyons of Chapada dos Guimarães National Park
• 
  Pantanal in Mato Grosso
• 
  Cuiabá River

Arena Pantanal in Cuiabá.

Cuiabá was one of 12 cities chosen to host the games of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which took place in Brazil.[36]

In the state were born the medalists of the World Championships Felipe Lima in swimming and David Moura in judo, in addition to the world champions of futsal Vinícius and Lenísio.[37][38][39]

• (in Portuguese) Official website of Mato Grosso