Map - Unaí

Unaí is a municipality in the Northern Region of Minas Gerais, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, in the Southeast Region of Brazil. It is located 590 km from the capital of Minas Gerais and 164 km from the federal capital. Unaí is the main municipality of its micro-region of the same name and, together with Paracatu, the most important city of the said mesoregion of Minas Gerais. Due to its geopolitical location, because it is geographically and politically linked to Brasilia and politically to Belo Horizonte, the municipality has a strong economic dynamism for a municipality that still carries the typically mineiro custom.

Its population is of 84,930 inhabitants according to estimates of the census of the IBGE of 2020 and is one of the less populous municipalities of the state but with one of the greater commuting migrations daily of the region.

In the municipality of Unai, there is the archaeological site Cave Gentile II, which records traces of hunter-gatherer peoples of more than 10,000 years, and gardeners people of almost 4000 years, they grew, according abundant plant remains: Corn, peanuts, pumpkin and gourd. In the city, it has the record of the oldest Brazilian ceramics outside the Amazon, dated 3500 years.

At the time of arrival of the first Europeans to Brazil, the central portion of Brazil was occupied by indigenous Macro-Ge linguistic trunk, as acroás, the xacriabás, the Xavante, the Kayapo, the Javaés, among others povos.

Over the centuries XVI, XVII and XVIII, numerous expeditions composed of Portuguese descent (called Scouts) swept the region in search of gold, precious stones and hand indigenous slave labor.

In the nineteenth century, the farmer Domingos Pinto Brochado settled, along with their families, in an area near the Rio Preto called White Grass. In 1873, the village was elevated to the rank of belonging to Paracatu district, with Rio Preto name. In 1923, the district was renamed to Unai, which is a translation for the Tupi language, the ancient name of the district, Rio Preto. In 1943, Unai emancipated the city of Paracatu.

On January 28, 2004, three labor inspectors and the driver who led them were murdered in a rural area of the municipality during an inspection on farms in the region, a crime that became known nationally as the Slaughter of Unai