Domingos Martins
Encyclopedia
Domingos Martins is the name of a municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
and its capital in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo is one of the states of southeastern Brazil, often referred to by the abbreviation "ES". Its capital is Vitória and the largest city is Vila Velha. The name of the state means literally "holy spirit" after the Holy Ghost of Christianity...
. According to the IBGE
IBGE
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE , is the agency responsible for statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil...
census of 2000, the municipality had 30,559 inhabitants, of which 5,820 were urban dwelling (mainly in the capital). It has a population density of 21.1 inhabitants/km².
Geography
Venda Nova do Imigrante
Venda Nova do Imigrante is a municipality, with a capital of the same name, in east central Espírito Santo, Brazil. Created in 1989, by separating from Conceição do Castelo, it stands at a height of 630 meters above sea level...
and Afonso Claudio
Afonso Claudio
Afonso Cláudio is the name of a municipality and its capital in east central Espírito Santo, Brazil, founded in 1963. The town, at a height of 610m above sea level, has a population of approximately 9,957 and an area of 361.7 km², and a population density of 27,53 inhabitants/km²...
to the west, Santa Maria de Jetiba and Santa Leopoldina to the north, Cariacica
Cariacica
Cariacica is a town and municipality in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. It is located 10 km northwest of Vitória, the capital of the state. It has a population of 343,100 and forms part of the Greater Vitória metropolitan area.-History:...
and Viana to the east, and Guarapari
Guarapari
Guarapari is a coastal town on the coast of Espírito Santo, Brazil. It is a part of Greater Vitoria. A municipal capital , it is located 47 km south of Vitória, of the state capital. Its population is 105,116 and its area is 592 km²....
, Marechal Floriano
Marechal Floriano
Marechal Floriano is the capital of a municipality of the same name, in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. Once part of the municipality of Domingos Martins, the town of Marechal Floriano separated on October 31, 1991, becoming capital of its own municipality...
, Alfredo Chaves and Vargem Alta to the south. The municipality itself is again subdivided into 5 districts (distritos): Capital (Sede in Portuguese), Aracê, Santa Isabel, Parajú and Melgaço. The total area occupied by the municipality is 1,225.327 km².
It is in the mountainous region of the state and is marketed as the "Green City", since it is surrounded by subtropical rainforest, much of which has disappeared in the rest of the region. Within its borders lie mountains of up to 2000m, amongst which is the well-known Pedra Azul State Park consisting mainly of a quartzite rock jutting out of the surrounding landscape at 1,822m above sea level. It has a blue tinge to the stone due to the kind of lichen
Lichen
Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
s which grow on it, which gives the name to the formation and the park.
History
This town was founded in 1893 and was then known as Campinho. Part of the colony of Santa Isabel, it was first a secondary district but soon outgrew its capital and took the title of capital from it later on. Domingos Martins acquired its present name on 20 December 1921, given in honour of Domingos José Martins who fought in the PernambucoPernambuco
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...
Revolution in 1817, when the region sought independence from Brazil. He was accused of treason and executed in Salvador on 12 June 1817.
The Lutheran-Confessional Evangelical Church in the town square ("Praça" Arthur Gerhardt-Square) was founded on 20 May 1866 and is considered the first evangelical church in Brazil to have a bell tower, as at that time only Catholic churches were permitted to build bell towers. A salient feature in the history of the municipality is the presence of Pomeranian immigrants, who came from a region that is now part of Germany and Poland. This population often finds itself in difficult-to-access areas, and many still speak Pomeranian, though today it is thought to be extinct in their homeland.
Economy
Because it was colonized mainly by Germanic immigrants, Domingos Martins still has characteristically Germanic architecture and cuisine. This makes it a top tourist destination for Capixabas. Both tourism and agriculture are important to this municipality. The capital also holds the headquarters of a fizzy-drink factory, "Refrigerantes Coroa", as well as a few small-scale biscuit factories which borrow their recipes from their Germanic ancestors.A local celebrity is Roberto Kautsky, who owns a private nature reserve and large collection of orchids, which both are major assets to local tourism and identity.