Do you like riddles? Yea? So here's one:
- What is the biggest municipality in Brazil?
So, you know? This is a difficult question, as many people think that the answer is a well-known city, one of those that everyone calls a “big city”. But the answer is more unlikely than most people realize...
The largest Brazilian municipality is Altamira, located in the state of Pará, in the North region from the country. That's right, it's neither São Paulo nor Rio de Janeiro! The municipality of Altamira has a territorial area of 159,695 km², being even larger than the area of the state of Sergipe, which has only 21,910 km².
Are you surprised by the answer? It's because we're talking about a County, and not from a City.
But, after all, what is the difference between city and municipality?
O County it is the total territorial area administered by a city hall and a group of councilors. It is the division of a state into several parts, that is, into several municipalities. They have their border legally delimited, including several cities in their territory.
already the City it is nothing more than the most urbanized part of the municipality. If it is a very small and isolated residential grouping, we do not call it a city, but rather a town, village or equivalent names. Therefore, when we talk about a city, we are referring to an area that has a large or medium concentration of people, in addition to streets, neighborhoods, schools, among others.
So if the question at the beginning of the text were "which is the biggest City of Brazil?", then the answer would be "Sao Paulo", as this city is the most populous in the country.
A municipality, as we have already said, can have several cities or districts. The main city is called the headquarters district, while the smaller ones do not have municipal autonomy, that is, they are not emancipated.
in short: the municipality is a territory composed of a rural area and some urbanized areas, which we call cities.
By Rodolfo Alves Pena
Graduated in Geography
