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Mauritsstad
Encyclopedia
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Dutch Brazil
Dutch Brazil, also known as New Holland, was the northern portion of Brazil, ruled by the Dutch during the Dutch colonization of the Americas between 1630 and 1654...
, and is now a part of the Brazilian city of Recife
Recife
Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper...
.
The city was built on the island of Antonio Vaz opposite Recife, and designed by architect Pieter Post
Pieter Post
Pieter Jansz Post was a Dutch Golden Age architect, painter and printmaker.-Biography:...
. It was named after Governor Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, who had founded the city and palace Vrijburgh. Mauritsstad was the cultural center of the New World, with the first botanical garden and the first zoo in America, and a museum with three hundred stuffed monkeys. The city's Jewish population constructed the first synagogue in the Americas.