Qualla: Tocantins

Tocantins: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Túllio F, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1988, Brazil invented a state. Not all nations do this casually. Tocantins was carved out of the northern two-fifths of Goias by a new federal constitution - the same constitution that ended a military dictatorship and remade the country's institutional life - and the result was the youngest state in the federation. Its capital did not yet exist. Its government did not yet exist. Its identity was an act of political will more than a geographic certainty. Four decades later, Tocantins has filled in around its own outlines: a state of cerrado, rivers, and emerging cities, straddling the Amazon and the savanna with characteristics borrowed from both.

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Image: Túllio F | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tocantins: The Dunes of Jalapao

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Luis Dantas, Public domain. In the eastern part of the state, far from the Amazon and deep into the cerrado, lies one of the most improbable landscapes in Brazil. The Jalapao is a fragile, dry, hilly environment of bright orange sand dunes, seasonal rivers, and sudden waterfalls - a kind of desert that is n...

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Image: Luis Dantas | Public domain

Tocantins: The Rivers and the Island

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Iza Guedes, CC BY-SA 3.0. Tocantins is river country. The Rio Tocantins itself has been dammed for hydropower, producing a large reservoir that has become a center of recreation, lined with beaches and weekend retreats. The Araguaia River forms the western border with Mato Grosso and Para, and where it me...

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Image: Iza Guedes | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tocantins: Palmas, the Eco-Metropolis

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marcelo Jorge Vieira from Belo Horizonte/MG, Brasil, CC BY 2.0. The capital, Palmas, markets itself as an eco-metropolis. This is partly accurate and partly aspirational. The planned city sits on a plateau beside the Tocantins reservoir, its streets laid out on a grid, its civic heart dominated by the enormous Sunflower Square. Several urban ...

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Image: Marcelo Jorge Vieira from Belo Horizonte/MG, Brasil | CC BY 2.0

Tocantins: A State Between Biomes

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anderson Bueno Pereira, CC BY-SA 3.0. Tocantins straddles the transition zone between the Amazon rainforest and the vast central Brazilian savanna. The climate is hot and semi-humid with pronounced seasonality, a dry winter from May through October, and heavy rains from November through April. This dual biomes charac...

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Image: Anderson Bueno Pereira | CC BY-SA 3.0