Pôr do sol no Parque Ipanema, Ipatinga MG

Ipatinga is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

in eastern

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literall ...

state, Brazil. The city was founded on 29 April 1964 and covers a total area of . Its population is 267,333 as of 2021. It is part of the

Vale do Aço A vale is a type of valley. Vale may also refer to: Places Georgia * Vale, Georgia, a town in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region Norway * Våle, a historic municipality Portugal * Vale (Santa Maria da Feira), a former civil parish in the municipa ...

(Steel Valley)

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually ...

(population 430,700). Ipatinga is at the site where the

Piracicaba River The Piracicaba River is a river of São Paulo state in southeastern Brazil. It is a tributary of the Tietê River, which it joins in the reservoir created by Barra Bonita Dam. There is also another Piracicaba river in the state of Minas Gerais ...

flows into the

Doce River The Doce River (literally the "sweet river"; pt, Rio Doce ) is a river in southeast Brazil with a length of . The river basin is economically important. In 2015 the collapse of a dam released highly contaminated water from mining into the river ...

. Located 217 km far from the state capital of

Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte (, ; ) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million and with a metropolitan area of 6 million people. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropol ...

, it is served by highway and railroad connections (Vitória-Minas Railway). There is also a medium-sized airport, Vale do Aço Regional Airport in the area of the neighboring city Santana do Paraíso, that serves the Steel Valley and can receive small and medium-sized planes, including jets like the Boeing 737 and the Fokker 100.

Geography

According to the modern (2017) geographic classification by Brazil's National Institute of Geography and Statistics (

IBGE The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics ( pt, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística; IBGE) is the agency responsible for official collection of statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental informat ...

), the city is the main municipality in the

Intermediate Geographic Region of Ipatinga The Intermediate Geographic Region of Ipatinga (code 3105) is one of the 13 intermediate geographic regions in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and one of the 134 of Brazil, created by the National Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE ...

Industry

It is the most important city of the Vale do Aço metropolitan area and it is the headquarters of one of the largest steel making complexes in Brazil, Usina Siderúrgica de Minas Gerais –

Usiminas Usiminas is one of the largest producers of steel in the Americas, with major steel mills in Brazil with a total capacity of 9.5 million metric tons of steel per year. The company accounts for 28% of total steel output in Brazil. Usiminas has an ...

Environment

Despite the steel complex's presence, Ipatinga has 127 m² of green area per inhabitant, one of the highest averages in the country. Ipanema park, Ipatinga's main park, has about one million square meters of green space with 12 thousand trees planted, one of the largest in the country.

Sports

Ipatinga Futebol Clube, the city's main

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

club won the

state championship New Zealand has had a domestic first-class cricket championship since the 1906–07 season. Since the 2009–10 season it has been known by its original name of the Plunket Shield. History The Plunket Shield competition was instigated in Octob ...

in 2005 and reached the

Copa do Brasil The Copa do Brasil ( en, Brazil Cup) is a knockout football competition played by 92 teams, representing all 26 Brazilian states plus the Federal District. It is the Brazilian domestic cup and the Brazilian equivalent of the FA Cup, Taça de P ...

semi-finals in 2006. In 2007, it placed 2nd on the National Championship's Série B, climbing to the first division. Ipatinga Futebol Clube holds its home at

Estádio Municipal João Lamego Netto Estádio Municipal João Lamego Netto, usually known as Lamegão or Ipatingão, is a multi-purpose stadium in Ipatinga, Brazil. It is currently used mostly for football (soccer), football matches. Ideal futebol Clube usually play their home match ...

popularly known as Ipatingão. The stadium was founded on 23 November 1981, and it is considered the fourth largest soccer stadium of the state of Minas Gerais. In 2013 this team changed Ipatinga to Betim.

Statistics

*Climate: Tropical wet and dry (or savanna) climate (Köppen-Geiger climate classification: Aw) *Average annual temperature: 23 °C *Latitude South 19°28'46" *Longitude West: 42°31'18" Distances from major cities: *Belo Horizonte: 217 km *Rio de Janeiro: 661 km *São Paulo: 808 km *Campinas: 830 km *Vitória: 401 km *Brasília: 935 km *Salvador: 1140 km

Sister cities

Ipatinga currently has two sister cities:Pouso & Prosa: CIDADES-IRMÃS
/ref> * – Kitakyushu, Fukuoka,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

since July 24, 1978 * -

Marlborough, Massachusetts Marlborough is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 41,793 at the 2020 census. Marlborough became a prosperous industrial town in the 19th century and made the transition to high technology industry in the ...

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

since 2009

Notable people

* Christian Carvalho (born 1980), Brazilian footballer

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Municipalities in Minas Gerais