Qualla: Formosa, Goias

Formosa, Goias: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The poet Leo Lince called Formosa the Cradle of the Waters of Brazil, and the hydrology justifies the name. Within the boundaries of this municipality in Goias, waters rise that will eventually reach three different oceans. The Ribeirao Bandeirinha flows into the Amazon system and eventually to the Atlantic via the mouth of the Amazon. The Ribeirao Pipiripau flows into the Plata system and eventually to the South Atlantic via the Rio de la Plata. The Ribeirao Santa Rita flows into the Sao Francisco system and reaches the Atlantic off the coast of Alagoas. Three continental basins, three trajectories, all beginning within 100 kilometers of one another on the cerrado plateau northeast of Brasilia.

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Formosa, Goias: Arraial dos Couros

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Formosa's name means beautiful, but its first name was less picturesque. Arraial dos Couros, the Leather Tent Camp, got its name from enslaved black laborers who founded a settlement on the banks of the Itiquira and Parana rivers in the eighteenth century. A devastating malaria o...

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Formosa, Goias: Cerrado and Its Creatures

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Formosa sits in the heart of the Cerrado, the second largest of Brazil's ecoregions. The Portuguese word cerrado means dense or closed, which is counterintuitive for a region of open tree and scrub savanna, but the density refers to the thick bark of the trees that survive the an...

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Formosa, Goias: Itiquira Falls

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

About 30 kilometers north of Formosa, the Itiquira Falls drop in one of the highest vertical waterfalls in Brazil, setting the landscape's most dramatic feature. The surrounding region is rich in caves, canyons, and smaller waterfalls. The Buraco das Araras, discovered in 1912, i...

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Formosa, Goias: From Cattle to Soybeans

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Formosa's economy was historically based on extensive cattle ranching, and cattle still dominate, with 237,000 head on the land as of the 2006 census, of which 25,800 are dairy cows. Most of this cattle is sold into the Federal District's two-million-person market next door. The ...

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Formosa, Goias: Lagoa Feia

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Four kilometers from the center of Formosa lies Lagoa Feia, the Ugly Lake, whose name seems deliberately self-deprecating for a body of water that is neither especially ugly nor small. The Preto River begins here, flowing south toward the Sao Francisco basin and eventually to the...

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