Ponto dos Volantes

Ponto dos Volantes is a Brazilian municipality located in the northeast of the state of Minas Gerais. The city belongs to the mesoregion of Jequitinhonha and to the microregion of Araçuaí. As of 2007 the population was 10,976 in an area of 1,215 km². The elevation is 400 meters. It became a municipality in 1997. The postal code (CEP) is 39615-000.

This is one of the poorest municipalities in the state and in the country. The main economic activities are cattle raising (14,000 head in 2006) and farming with modest production of bananas, coffee, mangoes, guava, rice, sugarcane, and corn. In 2006 there were 976 rural producers on a total area of 47,734 hectares. Cropland made up 8,200 hectares. There were 18 tractors. In the urban area there were no financial institutions as of 2006. There were 167 automobiles, giving a ratio of about one automobile for every 65 inhabitants. Health care was provided by 5 public health clinics. There were no hospitals.

Municipal Human Development Index

Note that at last count Brazil had 5,561 municipalities while Minas Gerais still had 853.

The above figures can be compared with those of Poços de Caldas, which had an MHDI of .841, the highest in the state of Minas Gerais. The highest MHDI in the country (2000) was São Caetano do Sul in the state of São Paulo with an MHDI of .919. More up-to-date data from 2004 show that the lowest in that year was Manari in the state of Pernambuco with an MHDI of .467 out of a total of 5504 municipalities in the country as of 2004. At last count Brazil had 5,561 municipalities so this might have changed at the time of this writing. See Frigoletto

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