Oeiras is a municipality in the Microregion of

Picos Picos is a municipality in the state of Piauí in the Northeast region of Brazil. Picos is the state's third-largest city, located in the south-central region of Piauí and is the most economically developed city in the region. The city's finan ...

, in the northeastern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian State of

Piauí Piaui (, ) is one of the states of Brazil, located in the country's Northeast Region. The state has 1.6% of the Brazilian population and produces 0.7% of the Brazilian GDP. Piaui has the shortest coastline of any coastal Brazilian state at 66&n ...

. According to the ''Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística - IBGE'' (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), its population was 37,085 inhabitants in 2020. The municipality covers an area of . The mayor, as of 2017, was José Raimundo de Sá Lopes.

History

Originally known as Vila da Mocha, due to its location on the stream Mocha, the settlement gained the recognition and status of Vila in 1712 by order of the King John V, later when the Captaincy of Piauí was created from the Captaincy of Maranhão in 1718, the settlement was designated as the capital of the newly created province. However, the royal decree which granted political autonomy would only be followed in 1759 with the arrival of the first governor of Piauí, João Pereira Caldas, the settlement would then gain the status of city in 1761, also changing the name to Oeiras as a tribute to the Count of Oeiras, who would later be known as the

Marquis of Pombal Count of Oeiras () was a Portuguese title of nobility created by a royal decree, dated July 15, 1759, by King Joseph I of Portugal, and granted to Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, head of the Portuguese government. Later, through another roya ...

, a powerful minister in the portuguese court. The city remained as the center of political decisions all the way to 1852, when the center of government was changed to the newly-founded city of

Teresina Teresina is the capital and most populous municipality in the Brazilian state of Piauí. Being located in north-central Piauí 366 km from the coast, it is the only capital in the Brazilian Northeast that is not located on the shores of the ...

References

Municipalities in Piauí {{Piauí-geo-stub