Qualla: Nova Lima

Nova Lima: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pcgomes, Public domain. Walk through Nova Lima's historic center today and you will find a neighborhood still called Bairro dos Ingleses - the Quarter of the English. Most of the descendants of those original miners have moved on. The Anglican Church they founded, however, still stands. The football club the company built in 1908, Villa Nova Atlético Clube, still plays in the Minas Gerais first division. And the aqueduct the British built to wash their gold - the Bicame - still threads through the old quarter in weathered stone. This city of 87,000 people, 20 kilometers south of the state capital Belo Horizonte, is what happens when a mine becomes the organizing logic of a place.

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Image: Pcgomes | Public domain

Nova Lima: From Campos de Congonhas

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edson Hwang - User: (WT-shared) Edsonh at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before it was Nova Lima, this place had three other names in sequence - Campos de Congonhas, then Congonhas de Sabará, then Villa Nova de Lima - before the current form was officially adopted in 1923. The progression reads like a typical mining-district genealogy in colonial Mina...

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Image: Edson Hwang - User: (WT-shared) Edsonh at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 3.0

Nova Lima: The British and Their Town

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Augusto Riedel (1836-1877?), Public domain. In 1834 the Saint John Del Rey Mining Company of London bought the Morro Velho mine and set about building a British company town around it. About 150 families came over from Britain to work the mine, manage it, and service its infrastructure. They brought Victorian churches. The...

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Image: Augusto Riedel (1836-1877?) | Public domain

Nova Lima: The Hole That Never Closes

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Francisco Boratto, CC BY-SA 4.0. Morro Velho, the Old Hill mine, reaches 2,700 meters below the surface today - making it one of the deepest mines on Earth, and the oldest continuously worked mine on the planet, in operation since 1725. Alongside Morro Velho, Nova Lima hosts the Mostardas and Rio de Peixe mines....

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Image: Francisco Boratto | CC BY-SA 4.0

Nova Lima: Parks Within the City Limits

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Francisco Boratto, CC BY-SA 4.0. Nova Lima includes significant protected land within its municipal boundaries. Part of the 3,941-hectare Serra do Rola-Moça State Park, created in 1994, lies within the city. A small portion of the 31,270-hectare Serra do Gandarela National Park, created in 2014, is also here. Th...

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Image: Francisco Boratto | CC BY-SA 4.0

Nova Lima: The Historic Center

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vinicius Depizzol from San Francisco, California, CC BY-SA 2.0. The civic heart of Nova Lima still carries its nineteenth-century bones. The Teatro Municipal sits near the Praça Principal. The Matriz do Pilar church is photographed at night by everyone who passes through. Hospital Nossa Senhora de Lourdes, built during the mining boom years, ...

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Image: Vinicius Depizzol from San Francisco, California | CC BY-SA 2.0