Brasília
Americannoun
noun
Discover More
One of the newest cities in the world, Brasilia was inaugurated in 1960 to replace Rio de Janeiro as Brazil's capital. The Brazilian government moved the capital in an effort to promote development in central Brazil. In less than thirty years, its population had grown to over a million inhabitants.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
I lived part of my teen years in Brasília, the capital built from scratch whose architecture and urban planning have drawn equal parts fascination and disdain.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2026
Mr. da Silva’s establishment sits along Brazil’s Federal Highway 060, which runs more than 900 miles southwest from Brasília, the capital, to Bela Vista, bordering Paraguay.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 25, 2026
Brazil's Supreme Court allowed the 70-year-old to be transferred from federal police headquarters where he is serving his sentence to a hospital in the capital, Brasília, for the initial surgery.
From BBC ● Dec. 29, 2025
I distinctly remember being on the family Mac in Brasília at 13 years old, grooving to a CD I’d just burned and thinking: If only my future friends at my new school could hear this.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2025
Meanwhile, the corridors of the presidential palace in Brasília were buzzing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 22, 2025
Moraes had also previously denied Milei permission to visit the former president while he was under house arrest in Brasilia.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
Brasilia has rejected Washington's accusations, saying that PIX has expanded the entire digital payments system, which increases online activity and benefits US companies like Google.
From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026
His only goal at the 2014 World Cup was against Ghana in Brasilia.
From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026
One of the composers of the samba told local media that Lula had cried when Academicos leaders travelled to Brasilia last year to play the song for him.
From Barron's ● Feb. 3, 2026
And the advocates of development are often from Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, or Brasilia, cities that are thousands of miles away from the Amazon and culturally almost as remote as environmentalists’ cities.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
![]()
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.