National Historical Museum (Brazil)

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Portuguese: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística; IBGE) is the agency responsible for official collection of statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil. IBGE performs a decennial national census; questionnaires account for information such as age, household income, literacy, education, occupation and hygiene levels. IBGE is a public institute created in 1936 under the name National Institute of Statistics. Its founder and chief proponent was statistician Mário Augusto Teixeira de Freitas. The current name dates from 1938. Its headquarters are located in Rio de Janeiro, and its current president is Susana Cordeiro Guerra. It was made a federal agency by Decree-Law No. 161 on February 13, 1967, and is linked to the Ministry of the Economy, inside the Secretariat of Planning, Budget and Management.

Castelo is a region in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but not officially recognized as a neighborhood, and officially forming part of the Centro neighborhood. It is generally considered to be located in the region between Avenida Rio Branco, the Santos Dumont Airport and Praça Quinze de Novembro. The area derives its name from the former Morro do Castelo in that location, which was demolished by water jets in the 1920s. As most of the buildings in the area were designed and built in the first half of the twentieth century, after the demolition of Morro do Castelo (Castle Hill) in 1921, the region became home to a large collection of Art Deco buildings. Art Deco was the prevalent architecture style in Rio de Janeiro at that time.

The Praça XV de Novembro, (English: 15 November Square) is a public square in the Centro section of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Tiradentes Palace (Portuguese: Palácio Tiradentes), was inaugurated on 6 May 1926 and is located in the Centro neighborhood (bairro), next to the Paço Imperial in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was the former seat of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, between 1926 and 1960, and is the current seat of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro.

The Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (Portuguese: Assembleia Legislativa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro or ALERJ) is the unicameral legislature of Rio de Janeiro, a state in Brazil. It has 70 state deputies elected by proportional representation. After the 1834 Additional Act, the Provincial Assembly was founded in the city of Vila Real de Praia Grande (now Niterói), after the unification of the states of Guanabara and Rio de Janeiro on March 15, 1975 the assembly was moved to Palácio Tiradentes in the city of Rio de Janeiro (site of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil until 1960).

The Paço Imperial (Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈpasu ĩpeɾiˈaw], European Portuguese: [ˈpasu ĩpɨɾiˈaɫ]), or Imperial Palace, previously known as the Royal Palace of Rio de Janeiro and Palace of the Viceroys, is a historic building in the center of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Paço Imperial was built in the 18th century to serve as a residence for the governors of colonial Brazil. From 1808, it was used as a royal residence by King John VI of Portugal as King of Portugal and later also as King of Brazil. In 1822 it became the city palace of the monarchs of the Empire of Brazil, Pedro I and Pedro II, who used it not as a residence, but as a workplace. It was one of the main political centers of Brazil for nearly 150 years, from 1743 to 1889. The Paço Imperial is located in the Praça XV de Novembro in central Rio. Due to its architectural and historical significance, it is one of Brazil's most important historic buildings. Today it serves as a cultural center.

The Gustavo Capanema Palace (in Portuguese, Palácio Gustavo Capanema), also known architecturally as the Ministry of Education and Health Building, is a government office building in the Centro district of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As the first modernist project in Brazil, it is historically important to the architectural development of Modernism in Brazil and has been placed on Brazil's UNESCO tentative list.

Academia Brasileira de Letras (ABL) (Portuguese pronunciation: [akadeˈmiɐ bɾaziˈlejɾɐ dʒi ˈletɾɐs] (listen) English: Brazilian Academy of Letters) is a Brazilian literary non-profit society established at the end of the 19th century. The first president, Machado de Assis, declared its foundation on December 15, 1896, with the by-laws being passed on January 28, 1897. On July 20 of the same year, the academy started its operation. According to its statutes, it is the pre-eminent Portuguese council for matters pertaining to the Portuguese language. The academy is considered the foremost institution devoted to the Portuguese language in Brazil. Its prestige and technical qualification gives it paramount authority in Brazilian Portuguese, even though it is not a public institution and no law grants it oversight over the language. The academy's main publication in this field is the Orthographic Vocabulary of the Portuguese Language (Vocabulário Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa) which has five editions. The Vocabulary is prepared by the academy's Commission on Lexicology and Lexicography. If a word is not included in the Vocabulary, it is considered not to exist as a correct word in Brazilian Portuguese. Since its beginning and to this day, the academy is composed of 40 members, known as the "immortals". These members are chosen from among citizens of Brazil who have published works or books with recognized literary value. The position of "immortal" is awarded for the lifetime. New members are admitted by a vote of the academy members when one of the "chairs" become vacant. The chairs are numbered and each has a Patron: the Patrons are 40 great Brazilian writers that were already dead when the academy was founded; the names of the Patrons were chosen by the Founders as to honour them post mortem by assigning patronage over a chair. Thus, each chair is associated with its current holder, her or his predecessors, the original Founder who occupied it in the first place, and also with a Patron. The academicians use formal gala gilded uniforms with a sword (the uniform is called "fardão") when participating in official meetings at the academy. The body has the task of acting as an official authority on the language; it is charged with publishing an official dictionary of the language. Its rulings, however, are not binding on either the public or the government.

Edifício Santos Dumont is an office skyscraper with a circular footprint located in the Centro neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The building, inaugurated in 1975, has a height of 141 meters and has 45 floors.

The Old Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, (Portuguese full name: Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Monte do Carmo da antiga Sé, literally Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel of the Ancient See) is an old Carmelite church which served as cathedral (Sé) of Rio de Janeiro from around 1808 until 1976. During the 19th century, it was also used successively as Royal and Imperial Chapel by the Portuguese Royal Family and the Brazilian Imperial Family, respectively. It is located in the Praça XV square, in downtown Rio. It is one of the most important historical buildings in the city.

Ilha Fiscal, or Fiscal Island, is an island in Guanabara Bay, bordering the historic city center of Rio de Janeiro, in southeastern Brazil. Originally named by Europeans as Rat Island (Portuguese: Ilha dos Ratos), its current name comes from the fact that the customs department has been stationed there before Guarda Fiscal, serving the port of the then-capital of the Empire during the nineteenth century. The customs offices were housed at a Neo-Gothic palace built under Pedro II, which occupies most of the island. The island became famous as the site of the famous Fiscal Island Ball (Portuguese: Baile da Ilha Fiscal), the last royal ball of the Empire before the coup d'état that proclaimed the Republic in November 1889.

The Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (MNBA; Portuguese for National Museum of Fine Arts) is a national art museum located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The museum, officially established in 1937 by the initiative of education minister Gustavo Capanema, was inaugurated in 1938 by President Getúlio Vargas. The museum collection, on the other hand, takes its rise in the transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil in the early 19th century, when King John VI brought along with him part of the Portuguese Royal Collection. This art collection stayed in Brazil after the King's return to Europe and became the core collection of the National School of Fine Arts. When the museum was created in 1937, it became the heir not only the National School collection, but also of its headquarters, a 1908 eclectic style building projected by Spanish architect Adolfo Morales de los Ríos.The Museu Nacional de Belas Artes is one of the most important cultural institutions of the country, as well as the most important museum of Brazilian art, particularly rich in 19th-century paintings and sculptures. The collection includes more than 20,000 pieces, among paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, of Brazilian and international artists, ranging from High Middle Ages to contemporary art. It also includes smaller assemblages of decorative arts, folk and African art. The museum library has a collection of about 19,000 titles. The building was listed as Brazilian national heritage in 1973.