Rondônia (English:/rɒnˈdoʊniə/,ron-DOHN-ee-əⓘ;Brazilian Portuguese:[ʁõˈdõnjɐ]ⓘ) is one of the 26states of Brazil, located in theNorth Region (the central-western part). It is bordered byAcre in the west,Amazonas in the north,Mato Grosso in the east, andBolivia in the south. Rondônia has a population of 1,815,000 as of 2021. It is the fifth least populated state. Its capital and largest city isPorto Velho, bathed by theMadeira River. The state was named afterCândido Rondon,[6] who explored the north of the country during the 1910s. The state, which is home to c. 0.7% of the Brazilian population, is responsible for c. 0.3% of the BrazilianGDP.
Rondonia used to be home to over 200,000 km2 ofrainforest, but has become one of the mostdeforested places in the Amazon. By 2003 around 70,000 km2 of rainforest had been cleared.[7]
The SpaniardÑuflo de Chávez was the first European explorer to reach the valley of theGuaporé River between 1541 and 1542, although he only passed through.Bandeirantes arrived in the region around 1650, with the goal of exploiting the gold and other minerals of the territory. In the same period,Jesuit priests came to the region and founded the first village.
Forte do Príncipe da Beira, 1930.
As a consequence of the discovery of gold on the right bank of the Guaporé River, the Portuguese Crown founded theCaptaincy of Mato Grosso in 1748 withAntonio Rolim de Moura Tavares [pt] as governor.[12] On March 19, 1752, the governor designatedVila Bela da Santíssima Trindade as the capital,[13] from where he commanded the border demarcation following theTreaty of Madrid (1750). In 1753, he installed a surveillance post in the village of Santa Rosa Velha, built by the Spanish on the right bank of the Guaporé, and thus in Brazilian lands.[14] In 1759, the Spanish governor ofSanta Cruz de la Sierra requested that the post be evacuated. Instead, Rolim de Moura built a fort to replace it, which became known as thePresídio de Nossa Senhora da Conceição [pt]. Due to the climate and the incursions of the Spanish, the Presidio was soon in ruins. It was rebuilt in 1769 by GovernorLuís Pinto de Sousa Coutinho, and renamed as Forte de Bragança. Ruined again, in 1776 theForte Príncipe da Beira was built in its place. In 1772,Francisco de Melo Palheta [pt] led an expedition fromBelém which reached theMadeira River, theMamoré River and the Guaporé River, reaching Santa Cruz de la Sierra.[15] The decline of mining and the proclamation of theFirst Brazilian Republic caused the region to lose its economic importance until the end of the nineteenth century, when the exploitation of rubber entered its peak.
Rondônia's initial development was not driven by an official action by the Brazilian government. Rondônia was populated and integrated into the country thanks to the private initiative that was interested in the neighboring state ofAcre, that was, at the time, at its economic peak, caused by theAmazon rubber boom. The clearing of the two contiguous areas in the 19th century is the result of the same expansion movement, the last in Brazil's territorial development cycle.[16]
The definitive establishment of the former territory of Acre, in 1903, gave impetus to the development of the region of what is today Rondônia, as theTreaty of Petrópolis obliged Brazil to build the Madeira-Mamoré railway.[17]
It is the third most populous state in the North Region with 1,815,278 inhabitants, according to an estimate byIBGE for 2021, being surpassed only byPará andAmazonas. The population density was 6.6 inhabitants/km2.
Urbanization: 66.8% (2004);Population growth: 2.2% (1991–2000);Houses: 430,747 (2005).[21] Four of its municipalities have a population above 100,000 inhabitants, these being Porto Velho, Ji-Paraná, Ariquemes and Vilhena.
Due to a historical culture of uncontrolleddeforestation, given its urban ethnic formation, of peoples fromcenter-southern Brazil who were seeking cheap land in the 70s and 80s, Rondônia is today one of the states that deforests the most in the country.[23][24]
The population of Rondônia is one of the most diverse inBrazil, composed ofmigrants from all regions of the country, among whom stand out theParaná,São Paulo,Minas Gerais, andRio Grande do Sul, who settled in the capital and the interior of the state.
47.6% Roman Catholic in theArchdiocese of Porto Velho (1925 as a Territorial Prelature) with 30 parishes under Archbishop Roque Paloschi (2015), and the two suffragan dioceses ofGuajará-Mirim (1929 as a Territorial Prelature) with 13 parishes under Bishop Benedito Araújo (2011), andJi-Paraná (1978 as the Territorial Prelature of Vila Rondônia) with 24 parishes under Bishop Norbert Hans Christoph Foerster (2020); 33.8% Protestant, 0.6% Spiritism, 3.7% other religion, 14.3% non-religious.[25][26][27][28]
The economy of the state of Rondônia has, as main activities, agriculture, livestock, food industry and vegetal and mineral extraction. In 2016, the state's GDP reached R$39.451 billion. Its export basket is mainly composed of frozen beef (43.43%), soy (32.77%), raw tin (7.08%), sawn wood (2.36%) and edible giblets (2.02%).[35][36]
Beginning in the 1970s, the state attracted farmers from the south-central part of the country, stimulated by the federal government's colonization projects and the availability of cheap and fertile land forillegal logging. The development of agricultural activities has transformed the area into one of the main agricultural frontiers in the country and one of the most prosperous and productive regions in northern Brazil. The state stands out in the production ofcoffee (largest producer in the North and 5th largest in Brazil),cocoa (2nd largest producer in the North and 3rd largest in Brazil),beans (2nd largest producer in the North),maize (2nd largest producer in the North region),soybean (3rd largest producer in the North region),rice (3rd largest producer in the North region) andcassava (4th largest producer in the North region). Despite the large volume of production and the small territory by the region's standards (7 times smaller than Amazonas and 6 times smaller than Pará), Rondônia still has more than 60% of its territory fully preserved.
Incoffee production, Rondônia was, in 2019, the 5th largest producer in the country, being the 2nd largest producer ofCoffea canephora, getting a total of 2.3 million bags of 60 kg of coffee (near 138 thousand tons) this year.[37]
Insoy, in the 2019 Brazilian harvest, Rondônia harvested 1.2 million tons, 3rd in the North Region.[38][39][40]
In 2019, the state produced 805 thousand tons ofmaize, second largest production in the northern region, losing only to Tocantins.[41]
Incassava production, Brazil produced a total of 17.6 million tons in 2018. Rondônia was the 11th largest producer in the country, with 583 thousand tons.[42]
In 2018, Rondônia produced 124 thousand tons ofrice.[43]
In the production ofcocoa, Pará has been competing withBahia for the leadership of Brazilian production. In 2019, Pará harvested 135 thousand tons of cocoa, and Bahians harvested 130 thousand tons. Rondônia is the 3rd largest cocoa producer in the country, with 18 thousand tons harvested in 2017.[44][45]
In 2017, the state had acattle herd of 14,098,031 head of cattle (73,37% for beef and the rest for dairy), second largest herd in the North, second only to Pará, being the 6th largest in the country, 5th in meat exports and 8th inmilk production.[46] The state's milk production in 2018 was around 800 million liters, the largest producer in the North.[47]
In 2017, Rondônia had 0.62% of the national mineral participation (8th place in the country). Rondônia had production oftin (10,9 thousand tons at a value of R$333 million),gold (1 ton at a value of R$125 million),niobium (in the form of columbita-tantalita) (3.5 thousand tons at R$24 million), andzinc in gross form (26 thousand tons at R$27 million)[48] In addition, in gemstones, the state has some production ofgarnet.[49]
Inindustry, Rondônia had an industrial GDP of R$8.2 billion in 2017, equivalent to 0.7% of the national industry. It employs 49,944 workers in the industry. The main industrial sectors are: Industrial Services of Public Utility, such as Electricity and Water (54.4%), Construction (19.2%), Food (17.6%), Wood (1.8%) and Non-metallic minerals (1.2%). These 5 sectors concentrate 94.2% of the state's industry.[50]
The state of Rondônia has 24,000 kilometers of highways, of which only 7% are paved. TheBR-364, fully paved in the Rondônia section, crosses the state from the border with Mato Grosso to the border with Acre. It is the main route for the outflow of grain production (especiallysoy) from the south of Rondônia and the west of Mato Grosso to the city of Porto Velho, where the grain port is located. A bridge is being built over the Madeira River (the first over this river), which aims to consolidate road transport between Brazil and Peru.[52]
One road to Bolivia:
from Principe da Beira along the Rio Blanco to Orobayaya,
The quality of Education in Rondônia is considered the fourteenth best in the country, compared to other Brazilian states. In the list of Brazilian states byHDI, with data from 2010, the "Education" factor reached an index of 0.557, an increase of more than 67% compared to 2000, when the state reached only 0.345.
According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2021 there were 244,815 enrollments in primary education in Rondônia.[53]
^Robin Sears and Robert Langstroth."Central South America: Northern Bolivia".Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas and Shrublands. WWF. Retrieved7 October 2012.
^Brown, Keith; Ogilvie, Sarah, eds. (2009). "Tupian languages".Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World 1st Edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science. pp. 1105–1109.ISBN978-0080877747.
^David Price:Pareci, Cabixi, Nambiquara. A case study in the western classification of native peoples. In:Journal de la Société des Américanistes vol.69, 1983, pp.129-148, doi : 10.3406/jsa.1983.2228 (online)
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