Catalão, Industrial municipality in southeastern Goiás, Brazil.
Catalão is an industrial city in southeastern Goiás with around 100,000 inhabitants, surrounded by rolling hills and farming areas. The center stretches along several parallel streets, flanked by residential neighborhoods, while factories and warehouses cluster at the city edge.
The first settlers arrived in the early 18th century looking for gold and soon turned to farming and cattle raising. The city gained its official status in the mid-19th century, as trade and agriculture expanded across the region.
The name comes from an early settler whose nickname, based on his origin, became the label for the whole area. On certain weekends you can hear drum rhythms and chanting in the streets of the center, when groups in colorful outfits practice religious customs rooted in African heritage.
From here you can reach other cities in Goiás and neighboring states along paved highways served by regular bus lines. If you want to explore the center, most shops and administrative buildings lie within a few blocks that you can walk easily.
Beneath the fields and pastures lie rich deposits of iron ore and manganese, which shifted the economic focus in the 20th century. Today large plants of international agricultural machinery makers stand at the city edge and shape the skyline as much as the older farming areas do.
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