Founded in by the Portuguese , the city was initially the seat of the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro , a domain of the Portuguese Empire. In , it became the capital of the State of Brazil , a state of the Portuguese Empire. Rio remained as the capital of the pluricontinental Lusitanian monarchy until , when the War of Brazilian Independence began.
This is one of the few instances in history that the capital of a colonizing country officially shifted to a city in one of its colonies. Rio de Janeiro has the second-largest municipal GDP in the country, [9] and 30th-largest in the world in It is headquarters to Brazilian oil, mining, and telecommunications companies, including two of the country's major corporations β Petrobras and Vale β and Latin America's largest telemedia conglomerate, Grupo Globo.
The home of many universities and institutes, it is the second-largest center of research and development in Brazil, accounting for 17 percent of national scientific output according to data. Rio de Janeiro is one of the most visited cities in the Southern Hemisphere and is known for its natural settings, Carnival , samba , bossa nova , and balneario beaches [13] such as Barra da Tijuca , Copacabana , Ipanema , and Leblon.
Rio de Janeiro was the host of the Summer Olympics and the Summer Paralympics , making the city the first South American and Portuguese-speaking city to ever host the events, and the third time the Olympics were held in a Southern Hemisphere city.
In , one of the islands of Guanabara Bay , now called Villegagnon Island , was occupied by French colonists under the French admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon. Consequently, Villegagnon built Fort Coligny on the island when attempting to establish the France Antarctique colony. Eventually this French settlement became too much of a threat to the established Portuguese colony and in the order was made to get rid of them. On 20 January , a final defeat was imposed on the French forces and they were decisively expelled from Brazil for good.
