Goiânia is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Goiás. With a population of 1,301,892, it is the second-largest city in the Central-Western Region and the 13th-largest in the country. Its metropolitan area has a total population of 2,063,744, making it the 11th-largest in Brazil.Goiânia is a planned city founded on October 24, 1933 by then Governor Pedro Ludovico to serve as the new state capital and administrative center. Prior to this date, the state capital was the town of Goiás. Goiânia has the largest green area per inhabitant in Brazil, and the second-most in the world, after Edmonton, Canada.HistoryThe idea of creating a new state capital had been bounced around from early on in the history of the state of Goiás. The first plan came from D. Marcos de Noronha who in 1753 wanted to establish the state capital in the municipality of Pirenópolis, then again in 1863 José Vieira Couto de Magalhães put forward a plan to move the capital to the edge of the river Araguaia.The impetus behind the efforts to move the state capital was the need to locate it in accordance with the economic interests of the state. The first state capital, Vila Boa (today City of Goiás), had been chosen when the economy was based on gold extraction. Later, when cattle-raising and agriculture came to dominate the state's development, the old state capital was considered remote.