Cuiabá

The Bororo name of the place is usually translated as 'arrow-fishing'. In the early 18th century bandeirantes, expeditions from São Paulo, came up the rivers to capture Indigenous people, and found gold on the Coxipó River where it meets the Cuiabá. Pascoal Moreira Cabral reported the find to São Paulo in a letter of April 1719, and a gold rush followed at once, with prospectors coming mainly from the São Paulo region and enslaved Indigenous people, and later enslaved Africans, forced to work the mines. The town was formally founded on 1 January 1727 as Vila Real do Senhor Bom Jesus de Cuiabá; its Church of the Rosary was said to mark a rich seam of gold.

The mines declined, and the colonial governors moved the capital of the captaincy west to Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade, but Cuiabá was raised to a city in 1818 and became the capital of the province of Mato Grosso in 1835. Far from the coast and reached by long river journeys, it remained isolated. The Paraguayan War of 1864–1870 brought a brief boom, as the town supplied sugar, food and timber to the Brazilian troops. In 1909 Cândido Rondon calculated the geodesic centre of South America and marked it in the city; later measurements placed it about 45 km away, near Chapada dos Guimarães.

In the second half of the 20th century the city grew quickly, merging with its neighbour Várzea Grande into a metropolitan area, and much of the colonial centre was demolished, including the old mother church in 1968; restoration of the surviving buildings began only in the 1980s. Since 1990 growth has slowed as other towns in the state draw migrants. In 2014 Cuiabá was one of the host cities of the World Cup, a choice criticised at the time.

Cuiabá's culture blends Indigenous, African and Portuguese roots, and the city keeps strong regional traditions. The siriri and cururu dances, performed at religious festivals, are accompanied by the viola de cocho, a small guitar carved from a single log and recognised as part of Brazil's national intangible heritage. Lambadão, a fast music and dance that grew from the lambada brought by prospectors from Pará and the local rasqueado, is the popular sound of the city and its neighbour Várzea Grande, with its own festival.

The Church of the Rosary and Chapel of São Benedito, founded by enslaved people in the 18th century, holds the traditional Festa de São Benedito every July. Catholicism is the faith of about half the population, with evangelical churches making up most of the rest, and Cuiabá also has a mosque.

The city has numerous museums reflecting its mix of influences, from sacred art and the history of Mato Grosso to the river's fishing traditions, and the SESC Arsenal, in the old war arsenal, is a busy cultural centre. Football centres on Cuiabá Esporte Clube at the Arena Pantanal. The heat shapes social life, and evenings outdoors in squares and bars are the norm.

Cuiabá had about 650,000 inhabitants at the 2022 census, and together with Várzea Grande, across the river, forms the main urban area of Mato Grosso. It is the state's centre of commerce and services, serving a population spread across many small farming towns, and its industry is mainly agribusiness, especially food processing, much of it in an industrial district founded in 1978.

The farm economy of Mato Grosso, one of the main soya and cattle producing states of Brazil, drives the city. New high-rise apartment districts and shopping centres have grown up away from the old centre, which is busy by day with shops and offices. The Federal University of Mato Grosso has its main campus here.

The day is organised around the heat. People start early, the middle of the day is spent indoors where possible, and life moves outdoors in the evening. The dry season brings smoke from fires in the surrounding countryside, which can hang over the city. Transport has long been a sore point: the light-rail line begun for the World Cup was abandoned, leaving buses and cars to carry the city's traffic.

Fish from the rivers of the region — pacu, pintado, dourado, piraputanga and others — is the basis of Cuiabá's cooking, eaten with cassava flour, pumpkin and banana. Pacu is roasted or its ribs fried as ventrecha de pacu, piraputanga is grilled over coals or cooked in banana leaf, and mojica de pintado and caldo de piranha, piranha broth, are local favourites. Farofa de banana and pirão, a dish made from cassava flour, accompany them.

Maria Isabel, rice cooked with charque, dried salted beef, is a dish of the city's own cooking, also known as arroz carreteiro. Paçoca de pilão is charque pounded in a mortar with seasoned cassava flour.

Sweets are distinctive too. Furrundum is green papaya cooked with rapadura, unrefined cane sugar, and cinnamon; pixé is toasted maize pounded with cinnamon and sugar. The fish restaurants of the Porto, near the river, and the bars and restaurants around the Praça Popular are where many people eat out.