Padre Paraíso - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Padre Paraíso is a Brazilian municipality located in the northeast of the state of Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...

. Its population as of 2007 was estimated to be 18,120 people living in a total area of 543 km². The city belongs to the mesoregion of Jequitinhonha and to the microregion of Araçuaí

Araçuaí

Araçuaí is a Brazilian municipality located in the northeast of the state of Minas Gerais in the Jequitinhonha River valley. The Araçuaí River, a tribuatary of the Jequitinhonha, flows through it.. Its population as of 2007 was estimated to be 36,083 people living in a total area of 2,235 km²....

. It became a municipality in 1962.

Padre Paraíso is located on the Rio-Bahia highway (BR-116) at an elevation of 664 meters (center of the town). The climate is semi-arid and the region is mountainous.

The economy is based on cattle raising, services, and subsistence agriculture, with the main crops being coffee, beans, manioc, sugarcane, and corn. The cattle herd had 8,000 head in 2006. In 2005 there were 639 rural producers but only 7 tractors. 2,100 persons were dependent on agriculture. As of 2005 there were 17 health clinics and 1 private hospital with 42 beds. Educational needs were met by 23 primary schools, 3 middle schools and 4 nursery schools. There were 959 automobiles in 2006, giving a ratio of 17 inhabitants per automobile (there were 790 motorcycles). There was 1 bank in 2007.

Neighboring municipalities are: Ponto dos Volantes

Ponto dos Volantes

Ponto dos Volantes is a Brazilian municipality located in the northeast of the state of Minas Gerais. The city belongs to the mesoregion of Jequitinhonha and to the microregion of Araçuaí. As of 2007 the population was 10,976 in an area of 1,215 km². The elevation is 400 meters. It became a...

- Caraí

Caraí

Caraí is a Brazilian municipality located in the northeast of the state of Minas Gerais. Its population as of 2007 was estimated to be 21,530 people living in a total area of 1,240 km². The city belongs to the mesoregion of Jequitinhonha and to the microregion of Araçuaí. The elevation of the...

- Araçuaí

Araçuaí

. The distance to Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte is the capital of and largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the southeastern region of Brazil. It is the third largest metropolitan area in the country...

is 542 km. The distance to the nearest major population center, Teófilo Otoni

Teófilo Otoni

Téofilo Otoni is a city in northeast Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The population of the municipality was 126,895 in 2007 and the area is 3,253.4 km².-Origin of the name:...

is 94 km.
Social Indicators

Padre Paraíso is ranked low on the MHDI and was one of the poorest municipalities in the state and in the country in 2000.

MHDI: .656 (2000)
State ranking: 726 out of 853 municipalities
National ranking: 3,673 out of 5,138 municipalities in 2000
Life expectancy: 67
Literacy rate: 70
Combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio: .774
Per capita income (monthly): R$94.00

The above figures can be compared with those of Poços de Caldas

Poços de Caldas

Poços de Caldas is a city and municipality in south-western Minas Gerais state, Brazil, in the microregion of the same name. Its estimated population in 2009 was 151,449 inhabitants...

, which had an MHDI of .841, the highest in the state of Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais

. The highest in the country was São Caetano do Sul

São Caetano do Sul

São Caetano do Sul is a city in São Paulo state in Brazil, located in the Greater São Paulo Metropolitan Area. It is the city with the highest per capita income in Brazil and it also has the highest Human Development Index .-Geography:São Caetano do Sul is located on a plateau that is part of the...

in the state of São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

with an MHDI of .919. The lowest was Manari in the state of Pernambuco

Pernambuco

Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...

with an MHDI of .467 out of a total of 5504 municipalities in the country as of 2004. At last count Brazil had 5,561 municipalities so this might have changed at the time of this writing.

See also