Mauritsstad was the capital of Dutch Brazil

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...

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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.