Federal District
Federal District houses Brasília: planned capital (1960), Niemeyer/Costa UNESCO modernism, highest GDP per capita but stark satellite city inequality.
The Federal District contains Brasília—Brazil's planned capital inaugurated in 1960, carved from cerrado wilderness to shift power from coastal Rio de Janeiro to the interior. Oscar Niemeyer's modernist architecture and Lúcio Costa's pilot plan created a city designed for automobile circulation and government function. Brasília's unique urban form earned UNESCO World Heritage status in 1987.
The district's 3.1 million residents depend heavily on government employment. Federal ministries, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace (Planalto) anchor an economy where public sector wages drive consumption. This creates unusual income patterns: Brasília has Brazil's highest per capita GDP but also stark inequality between government employees and service workers, particularly in satellite cities surrounding the planned center.
The modernist dream encountered demographic reality. Workers who built Brasília settled in peripheral areas that Niemeyer's plan hadn't anticipated, creating satellite cities now larger than the original plan zone. Traffic congestion developed despite wide highways. The artificial lake (Paranoá) and designed superblocks function, but the city that was meant to integrate Brazil instead became an island of federal employment surrounded by challenges of urban growth that planners couldn't foresee.