Manhuaçu

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Location of Manhuaçu within Minas Gerais

Manhuaçu is a city and municipality in Eastern Minas Gerais state, in Brazil. The population of the municipalitiy was 67,723 inhabitants with 40,751 in the urban area and 26,372 in the rural area. Located 260 km from the state capital of Belo Horizonte, it is near the important road junction of BR 262 (Belo Horizonte-Vitória) and BR 116 (Rio-Bahia). The geographical coordinates are Latitude 20°15'29 S and Longitude 42°02'01 W. The total area of the municipality is 629 km² and it lies at an elevation of 635 m in the foothills of the Serra da Chabata or Caparaó, which form the boundary between the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo.

Altitude

maximum: 1,760 m at Serra Pedra Dourada
minimum: 561 m at Foz do Rio São Mateu

Temperature

annual average: 22.7 °C
average annual maximum: 27.5 °C
average annual minimum: 16.6 °C
annual rainfall average: 1,827 mm

The main rivers are the Ribeirão do Manhuacuzinho and the Rio Manhuaçu, which are tributaries of the Doce River.

Distances: 270 km to Belo Horizonte/MG and 230 km to Vitória/ES.

[edit] Economy

The economy of the city is based on the production and processing of mountain coffee. It is the center of commercialization of coffee of the Zona da Mata, and there are offices and warehouses of the main exporting and processing companies of the country. There are storage facilities for about one million sacks of coffee.

The region harvests about 1.5 million sacks of coffee a year

There is one school of higher education, FACIG - Faculdade de Ciências Gerenciais de Manhuaçu [1], which had its first entrance exam in 2002. It has mainly courses related to accounting and marketing.

[edit] Parque Nacional do Caparaó

The Parque Nacional do Caparaó is a national park administered by the national Ibama and is located approximately 60 km southeast of Manhuaçu on the boundary dividing the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo. The entrance to the park is at Alto Caparaí. The area of the park is 318 square kilometers.

It was created in 1961 by President Jânio Quadros. It contains the third highest peak in the country, the Pico da Bandeira. In 1859 Emperor Dom Pedro II had ordered that a flag of the Empire be placed on the highest peak of the Serra do Caparaó. It is believed that the name Pico da Bandeira (2,891 m) is due to this fact. The mountains of the Caparó chain have landscapes of great beauty with numerous waterfalls and caverns[2]. There are also other important peaks like Pico do Cristal (2769.7 m) and Pico do Calçado (2.766 m).