Qualla: Niquelândia https://qualla.com/niquelandia en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/m/t/niquelandia-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Niquelândia https://qualla.com/niquelandia Niquelândia: Introduction https://qualla.com/niquelandia/ Photo credit A. Duarte, CC BY-SA 2.0. Freimund Brockes was looking for gold. In 1938 the German miner was panhandling the streams that crossed this stretch of northern Goiás - the same streams that Portuguese bandeirantes had been working since 1735 when they founded the settlement called São José do Tocantins. Gold was the reason anyone came to this part of Brazil. Gold was why the town existed. But Brockes noticed something else in his pan, something heavy and silvery that was not gold. What he had found was the second-largest nickel deposit in the world. In 1943 the town changed its name from São José do Tocantins to Niquelândia, which translates roughly as Nickeland. The bandeirante past disappeared into the name of the metal that would define everything for the next eighty years.

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Image: A. Duarte | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/m/t/niquelandia-wp/6vmt-niquel-ndia-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Niquelândia: The Size Of A Country https://qualla.com/niquelandia/ Photo credit KARLA APARECIDA NERES DE OLIVEIRA, CC BY-SA 4.0. Niquelândia is the largest municipality in Goiás by area - so large that, measured against nations, it falls between Lebanon and Cyprus. It sprawls 370 kilometers from the state capital Goiânia, reached by a chain of highways that thread through Nerópolis and São Francisco and Ja...

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Image: KARLA APARECIDA NERES DE OLIVEIRA | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/m/t/niquelandia-wp/6vmt-niquel-ndia-the-size-of-a-country.mp3 0:06 2 full Niquelândia: Nickeland https://qualla.com/niquelandia/ Photo credit Gabriel vicente oliveira, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two mining companies extract nickel here. Companhia Níquel Tocantins belongs to Votorantim, the Brazilian industrial conglomerate. Codemin belongs to Anglo American, one of the largest mining companies on Earth. Between them they work reserves that rank among the largest globally...

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Image: Gabriel vicente oliveira | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/m/t/niquelandia-wp/6vmt-niquel-ndia-nickeland.mp3 0:06 3 full Niquelândia: More Than Nickel https://qualla.com/niquelandia/ Photo credit Josè oca, CC BY-SA 4.0. Mining is the headline, but not the whole story. Geologists have catalogued more than 120 types of mineral in the municipality - gold, crystal, platinum, copper, mica, iron, manganese, diamonds, quartz, marble, cobalt, asbestos, even uranium. The region sits on a geological seam ...

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Image: Josè oca | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/m/t/niquelandia-wp/6vmt-niquel-ndia-more-than-nickel.mp3 0:06 4 full Niquelândia: Serra Da Mesa https://qualla.com/niquelandia/ Photo credit Gabriel vicente oliveira, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the Serra da Mesa Dam was built at the end of the 1990s at nearby Minaçu, the Maranhão, Tocantinzinho, and Bagagem rivers were combined into a single vast reservoir. Fifty-seven percent of the resulting lake lies within the Niquelândia municipality. The lake surface reaches ...

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Image: Gabriel vicente oliveira | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/m/t/niquelandia-wp/6vmt-niquel-ndia-serra-da-mesa.mp3 0:06 5 full Niquelândia: A Town Still Old https://qualla.com/niquelandia/ Photo credit MissvainOriginal author: User:Edsonchuck, CC BY-SA 3.0. Niquelândia is one of the oldest municipalities in Goiás, founded in 1735 during the first wave of bandeirante expansion north from São Paulo. What remains of that colonial past is scattered through the historical center - churches, narrow streets, stone foundations that long pre...

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Image: MissvainOriginal author: User:Edsonchuck | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/m/t/niquelandia-wp/6vmt-niquel-ndia-a-town-still-old.mp3 0:06 6 full