067 - THE CORCOVADO OVERLOOKING THE CITY OF RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (22°57’ S, 43°13’ W).
Perched on a rocky 704 m peak called Corcovado, or “hunchback,” the statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooks the Guanabara Bay and its famous “Sugarloaf” as well as the city of Rio de Janeiro. The city owes its name—which means “River of January”—to a misunderstanding by the first Portuguese explorers who dropped anchor in the bay, in January 1502, and thought they had arrived at the mouth of a river. The capital of Brazil from 1763 to 1960, Rio de Janeiro has developed into a megalopolis with a population of more than 10 million and spreading out over 50 km. Christ the Redeemer of Corcovado is a reminder that Brazil has the largest Catholic population in the world, approximately 125 million people or 73.6 percent of the population. The more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide make up the largest denomination in Christianity, the world’s most widely practised religion, which has nearly 2 billion followers (Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox).