History of Rio de Janeiro

Guanabara Bay was reached by a Portuguese expedition under Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci, that included Portuguese explorer Gaspar de Lemos, on January 1, 1502; hence Rio de Janeiro, "January River." There is a legend that the mariners named the place thus because they thought the mouth of the bay was actually the mouth of a river, but no experienced sailor would make that mistake. At the time, river was the general word for any large body of water. Several years after the Portuguese first explored Brazil, French traders in search of pau-brasil (a type of brazilwood) reached the rich area extending from the Cape Frio coast to the beaches and islands of Guanabara Bay, the economic and, above all, strategic importance of which was already well-known.

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