Belo Horizonte (or simply "BH" (''beh-ah-GAH'') to locals) is little over a century old. With a metropolitan population reaching more than 5 million (edging out Salvador), it was built as a planned city to take the place of Ouro Preto as the State's capital. Its layout features square sections drawn out by broad avenues, intersected diagonally by smaller streets.The city lies in the center of the Minas Gerais state, and is intended to bring together the many parts of this very diverse state. http://wikitravel.org/en/Belo Horizonte