How did the Brazilian states emerge?

See the evolution of the country’s map from the time of discovery to the current version.

1534 – CAPTAIN’S LAND

Thirty-four years after the Discovery, the Brazilian coast was being looted left and right by pirates in search of precious stones and rare woods. To maintain control of the territory, the Portuguese crown decided to create the hereditary captaincies, 15 strips of land stretching from the coast to the imaginary line of the Treaty of Tordesillas. In order to take care of these first “states” of the country, captain-donatories were appointed.

1709 – THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN PROVINCES

In 1709, the Portuguese decided to reorganize the colony based on the specific benefits that each region could bring to the crown. Then were born the seven provinces, immense extensions of land with better defined borders. In addition to the economic aspects, the creation of provinces aimed to obtain even greater control over the territory, constantly threatened by the action of pirates and the Spanish “big eye”.

1822 – IMPERIAL DRAFT

After Independence, in 1822, Brazil was divided into several new provinces, “drafts” of what would become the future states. The current map of the Northeast, for example, is already almost all there (almost all the current states of the Northeast have their origin in the provinces of the empire – only Sergipe was not yet on the map). The provinces of Mato Grosso and Goiás were born after the downsizing of the formerly superpowerful province of São Paulo. In the South, we still had the province of Cisplatina, which belonged to Brazil until 1829, when a separatist movement forced the country to recognize the independence of the region, which gave rise to Uruguay

1942 – STATES OF SIEGE

There were big changes on the map after the Proclamation of the Republic, in 1889, as the adoption of the word state to name the portions of the territory. In addition to Amazonas, created in 1889, the new features on the map are the territories of Acre – purchased from Bolivia in 1903 -, Amapá, Rio Branco and Guaporé. borders, the government dismembered some areas, creating new territories, such as Amapá and Guaporé, in the north, and Iguaçu, in the south. Later, some of these territories became states and others disappeared, reintegrated into their region of origin (such as Ponta Porã and Iguaçu). Another curiosity of the War was that the territory of Fernando de Noronha was dismembered from Pernambuco, serving as a US military base.

1990 – AFTER THE PLASTICS

From 1960 onwards, the year Brasília was inaugurated, the last moves took place that left Brazil with the face it has today, with its 26 states plus the Federal District. Created that year to house the new capital, the Federal District is not a state, but an autonomous territory with administrative regions. Pernambuco and Mato Grosso do Sul (dismembered from Mato Grosso) and Tocantins (sliced ​​from Goiás) were born. The territories of Amapá and Roraima were promoted to states after the 1988 Constitution, with no change in their borders.