The mesoregion Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte is one of the twelve mesoregions of the

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

ian state of

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil, being the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants with a population of 20,539,989 according to the 2022 Brazilian census, 2022 census. Located in ...

. It is composed of 105 municipalities, distributed across 8 microregions. It is the most populous and densely populated of all the mesoregions of Minas Gerais. The largest city by population is

Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte is the List of largest cities in Brazil, sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population of around 2.3 million, and the third largest metropolitan area, containing a population of 6 million. It is the List of cities in Sout ...

. The mesoregion encompasses all the

Belo Horizonte metropolitan region Greater Belo Horizonte, Brazil, is the name usually used to describe the Belo Horizonte metropolitan region, which is composed of 34 municipalities. As of 2013, it is the third largest metropolitan area of Brazil with more than six million inhabi ...

(which has only 34 cities), and both should not be confused. The former is a geographical division created by the

Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (; IBGE) is the agency responsible for official collection of statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil. IBGE performs a decennial national cen ...

for statistical purposes, while the latter is the definition of a

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban area, urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which share Industry (economics), industries, commercial areas, Transport infrastructure, transport network ...

References

Mesoregions of Minas Gerais {{MinasGerais-geo-stub