Template:Wp-Brazilian Federal District-History

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From the first republican constitution there was already a device that foresaw the move of the federal capital from Rio de Janeiro, at that time in the former Federal District (1889-1960), to the interior of the country. In 1891 the Exploration Commission of the Central Highlands of Brazil was appointed, led by astronomer Luiz Cruls and composed of doctors, geologists and botanists, who made a study on topography, climate, geology, flora, fauna and other material resources of the region of the Central Highlands The area was known as Quadrilateral Cruls and was presented in 1894 to the Republican Government.

In 1922 a commission of the Federal Government established the location in Goiás, but the project was closed. Only in 1955, during a few elections, the then presidential candidate Juscelino Kubitschek said he would transfer the capital. Elected president, he established the construction of Brasilia as a meta-synthesis of his Plano de Metas.

The capital of Brazil was transferred from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília on 21 April 1960 and its new territory, split off from Goiás state on the border with the Minas Gerais state, became the current Federal District. After the transfer the old Federal District, containing the city of Rio de Janeiro, became the state of Guanabara. This state existed from 1960 until 1975, when it merged with the state of Rio de Janeiro. With the merger the capital of Rio de Janeiro state was transferred back from Niterói to Rio de Janeiro itself (as it had been until 1834 when the empire created the Neutral Municipality).