Carmo do Rio Claro is a city and municipality located in the south-west of Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...

 state, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

. The distance to the state capital, Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte is the capital of and largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the southeastern region of Brazil. It is the third largest metropolitan area in the country...

 is 374 km.

The characteristic vegetation of the municipality is cerrado

Cerrado

The Cerrado, is a vast tropical savanna ecoregion of Brazil, particularly in the states of Gioas and Minas Gerais...

 but there is still some gallery forest along the rivers.

The climate of the municipality is classified as subtropical mesothermic, characterized by dry winters and wet summers. The average temperature in winter is approximately 16°C and the average of the hottest month is about 27°C. The period between December and February is the rainiest. The driest months are from April to September

Carmo do Rio Claro is watered by the Furnas Dam

Furnas (lake)

The Furnas Dam is a hydroelectric dam in the Minas Gerais state of Brazil. A small settlement was built near the dam with the same name, to house the workers during the dam construction. The main purpose of the dam and reservoir are the production of electricity and the regulation of the flow of...

. Local economy is driven by agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, tourism

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

 e handicraft

Handicraft

Handicraft, more precisely expressed as artisanic handicraft, sometimes also called artisanry, is a type of work where useful and decorative devices are made completely by hand or by using only simple tools. It is a traditional main sector of craft. Usually the term is applied to traditional means...

.

Largely known by its handicraft in hand loom

Loom

A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads...

 and its production of handicrafted candy.

Carmo do Rio Claro is part of the Guaxupé

Guaxupé

Guaxupé is a Brazilian municipality located in the southwest of the state of Minas Gerais. Its population as of 2007 was 47,894 people living in a total area of 286 km². The city belongs to the meso-region of Sul e Sudoeste de Minas and to the micro-region of São Sebastião do Paraíso. It...

 diocese.

History and Economy

Its believed that the initial core of the town occurred during the Bandeiras

Bandeirantes

The bandeirantes were composed of Indians , caboclos , and some whites who were the captains of the Bandeiras. Members of the 16th–18th century South American slave-hunting expeditions called bandeiras...

 with José Barbosa de Arruda and Domingos Ferreira de Avelar, reminiscents of the Lourenço Castanho Bandeira's, known for having expulsed the natives Cataguases

Cataguases

Cataguases is a city located in the southeastern part of the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. It is mainly an industrial centre with a strong influence of coffee plantation in its early history . The population was estimated at about 62,000 inhabitants in 1996 and is expected to be at about 66,000...

 from the region of Tamanduá (Itapecerica).

Initially with the help of locals, José Joaquim Santana, built in his lands a small chapell in the place where today is the main church Igreja Matriz de Carmo do Rio Claro.
The freguesia de Nossa Senhora do Carmo do Monte do Rio Claro was created in 1810, in the lands inside the Princess Campaign area, to be later, 1814, included to the Jacuí

Jacuí

Jacuí is a town and municipality in the state of Minas Gerais in the Southeast region of Brazil.-References:...

 municipality.

The fertility of its lands propitiated the development of great farms, economic basis of the town, which in 1848 started to be part of Passos

Passos

-People:* Cristiano Ávalos dos Passos* John Dos Passos* Márcio Emerson Passos de Albuquerque, a Brazilian footballer* Rosa Passos* Vítor Hugo Gomes Passos, a Portuguese footballer-Brazil:* Passos, Minas Gerais, a municipality in the State of Minas Gerais...

.

The emancipation happened in 1875.