Barcarena is a Brazilian

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

in the state of

Pará Pará () is a Federative units of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins (state), Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas (Brazilian st ...

adjacent the

Tocantins River The Tocantins River ( , Parkatêjê dialect, Parkatêjê: ''Pyti'' ɨˈti is a river in Brazil, the central fluvial artery of the country. In the Tupi language, its name means "toucan's beak" (''Tukã'' for "toucan" and ''Ti'' for "beak"). It ...

. It has a population of 127,027 and is part of the

Belém Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará), often called Belém of Pará, is the capital and largest city of the state of Pará in the north of B ...

metropolitan area. The city's economy relies largely on agriculture and

bauxite Bauxite () is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)), and diaspore (α-AlO(OH) ...

. There are also facilities for

pig iron Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate good used by the iron industry in the production of steel. It is developed by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with si ...

nearby. They city and port is developing as a major transshipping port that takes goods for international export linked by rail from nearby

inland port An inland port is a port on an inland waterway, such as a river, lake, or canal, which may or may not be connected to the sea. The term "inland port" is also used to refer to a dry port. Examples The United States Army Corps of Engineers publ ...

s, from all over Brazil, speeding up shipment and reducing time and costs as opposed to traditional megaports in the Southeast.

History

The town was originally inhabited by the

Aruã people The Aruã were an Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous people in Brazil. In the 17th and 18th Century, they lived near the mouth of the Amazon River. Their stronghold was on the island Caviana, with a large presence in the north-east of t ...

. In 1709 Jesuits came. On October 6, 2015, the livestock vessel "MV Haidar" capsized in the Vila do Conde port due to an unsuccessful turning maneuver. It had 4,900 live cattle and almost 700 metric tonnes of oil on board. 4,400 cattle drowned while locked in the ship's cargo area. About 500 animals could free themselves, but only about 100 survived the accident. Fuel and oil seeped from the wreck into the water and contaminated the Pará river and surrounding beaches, which deprived many local fisher families of their livelihood. Since the removal of the oil slick proved to be complicated, and no consensus regarding responsibility and suitable cleanup efforts could be reached, hundreds of carcasses rotted at the beach and inside the shipwreck for months – a huge burden on the fishery and tourism of the region. The competent Federal Ministry estimated the damage to the residents to be 71 million reais (about 21 million US$). By July 2016 nothing had been paid out yet.- Afetados pelo naufrágio em Barcarena (PA) decidem que debate sobre indenização deve continuar
on Mpf.mp.br (Portuguese)

Geography

Climate

Barcarena has a

tropical rainforest climate A tropical rainforest climate or equatorial climate is a tropical climate sub-type usually found within 10 to 15 degrees latitude of the equator. There are some other areas at higher latitudes, such as the coast of southeast Florida, United States ...

(Af) with moderate rainfall from August to November and heavy to very heavy rainfall in the remaining months.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barcarena, Para Municipalities in Pará

History

Geography

Climate

See also

References