Baependi

Baependi is a Brazilian municipality located in the state of Minas Gerais. Its population as of 2006 is estimated to be 18,173 people living in an altitude of 893 meters. The area of the municipality is 751.748 km². The city belongs to the mesoregion of Sul e Sudoeste de Minas and to the microregion of São Lourenço.

Baependi is a council of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Its estimated population in 2004 was 17,974 inhabitants.
* List of municipalities in Minas Gerais

***History According to reports sertanistas, the region south-mining was known from 1601. The conquest of Baependi happened, however, at the end of the seventeenth century, around 1692, when the Sao Paulo Delgado Antonio da Veiga, his son Joao da Veiga and uncle Miguel Garcia of the old master Manoel Garcia Velho, started from Taubaté (SP ) In search of gold. Applying the Serra da Mantiqueira, reached a site that called maependi (mbaé-pindi means "to open clearing" in Tupi-guarani).

City remainder of the so-called cycle of Gold in Minas Gerais, Baependi has developed along the path of Estrada Real - the first major means of regular communication in Brazil - which link the region of mines to Paraty (RJ), port from where the rising gold toward Europe.

The Madeiran Tome Rodrigues Nogueira of O (1715), Captain-mor and Ombudsman of Quintos the "registration of the Mantiqueira" was one of the first residents of the site and was considered the founder of the city for doing the first building. The mining was, gradually, replaced by agriculture and cattle breeding. It is a great crop of tobacco, which was the center of Baependi producer of the Province of Minas Gerais and represented major source of wealth until the mid-nineteenth century.

Currently, the municipality's economy is based on agriculture, trade in handicrafts, marketing of stones, quartzite and tourism, as is the strong natural beauty of the city, surrounded by mountains, forests, rivers and numerous waterfalls. The craft is an important economic activity in Baependi. The pieces made in bamboo, straw, corn and tree trunk of coffee are distributed in large urban centers such as Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, capital of northeast.

***The religiosity Baependi was already functions with parish church since 1723. The feeling of deep religiosity mark the history of the city since the early days, translated by the customs of his people. The ceremony of the Holy Week in Baependi case for over 200 years, being one of the most traditional of Minas Gerais. The daily processions accompanied by banda music and choir, the representation of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, the corner of Veronica, the sound of bells and the sound of matracas, show the faith and tradition baependianas.

The temples, debruçados the slopes esguias, seem save the city and its inhabitants. The Shrine of N. Ms. of Conception, better known as Church of Nhá Chica, is the most visited by the faithful, which also delight with the architecture and the body of the Church N. Ms. of Montserrat (1754). The churches baependianas - the Mother, Our Lady of Good Death (1815) and Rosario (1820) - tombadas by and Artistic Heritage, represent assets of great value to a nation that considers Nhá Chica its highest spiritual heritage.