Tijuca Forest

The Tijuca Forest is a mountainous hand-planted rainforest in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is the World's largest urban forest, covering some 32 km² (12.4 mi²). The forest shares its name with bairros or neighborhoods of Tijuca and Barra da Tijuca that contains the entrances it. Tijuca cames from an obscure term from Tupi language which means marsh, and is a reference to the Tijuca lagoon in the contemporary Barra da Tijuca. The mountains were called Tijuca after it, as well the neighbourhood on the other side of it. It is a natural boundary that separates the West Zone of the city from the South, Central and North ones, and the North Zone from the South one.

One favela named Mata Machado exists in the Tijuca Forest. Its inhabitants are mainly the descendants of those who migrated to the region in the 1930s to take part in the replanting effort. Though conditions have improved recently under the Favela-Bairro Project, Mata Machado still contributes to environmental degradation in the forest. In 1961, Tijuca Forest was declared a National Park. The Forest contains a number of attractions, most notably the colossal sculpture of Christ The Redeemer atop Corcovado mountain. Other attractions include the Cascatinha Waterfall.