Qualla: Gama

Gama: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nicolas Yuri, CC BY-SA 4.0. In May 1960, architect Paulo Hungria drew a city in the shape of a beehive. The plan divided Gama into five sectors around a central hub for trade, each hexagonal cell serving a different function. The city was meant to shelter the candangos, the workers building Brasilia eight kilometers away, many of whom had been living in invasions and provisional shelters wherever the construction camps could spare ground for them. Engineer Jose Maciel de Paiva, acting on orders from Brasilia's first mayor Israel Pinheiro, began transferring people to Gama in September 1960. The beehive never filled out exactly as planned. Today Gama has grown into nine sectors rather than five, and its population of 137,331 makes it one of the Federal District's most important satellite administrative regions.

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Image: Nicolas Yuri | CC BY-SA 4.0

Gama: From Bandeirante to Beehive

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Rmx at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before Brasilia was imagined, in late 1746, a bandeirante named Antonio Bueno de Avezedo rode out of Paracatu in Minas Gerais with friends and enslaved men and traveled northwest into the highlands. He named a river he reached Sao Bartolomeu, after the saint whose feast day ...

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Image: User: (WT-shared) Rmx at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Gama: The Candangos' City

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Túllio F, CC BY-SA 4.0. Gama was created to house the people building Brasilia. The candangos, the construction workers drawn mostly from Goias, Minas Gerais, and the Northeast, were living in makeshift camps scattered across the construction zones. As Brasilia's skyline rose, the government needed perm...

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Image: Túllio F | CC BY-SA 4.0

Gama: Highland Climate

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nádia Aguiar, CC BY-SA 4.0. Gama sits on the high Central Plateau at altitudes ranging from 900 to over 1,270 meters, classifying the climate as tropical savanna (Aw under Koppen) with cooler highland variants (Cwa and Cwb) at the higher elevations. The average annual temperature is about 22 degrees Celsius...

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Image: Nádia Aguiar | CC BY-SA 4.0

Gama: Aerospace and Automotive Engineering

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nossedotti, Public domain. The University of Brasilia (UnB) operates its Faculty of Gama (FGA) campus in the city, specializing in engineering. The FGA offers undergraduate degrees in Aerospace, Automotive, Electronics, Energy, and Software Engineering, unusual concentrations for a Brazilian public univers...

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Image: Nossedotti | Public domain

Gama: A Regional Hub

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nádia Aguiar, CC BY-SA 4.0. Gama is small enough to walk across and large enough to draw 600,000 visitors daily from the surrounding cities in Goias. Residents of Novo Gama, Valparaiso, Cidade Ocidental, Luziania, and Santo Antonio do Descoberto cross municipal lines to shop, work, study, and use services i...

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Image: Nádia Aguiar | CC BY-SA 4.0