Campo Grande

Etymology

The current name originates from the primitive designation of the settlement, Arraial de Santo Antônio de Campo Grande, a reference to the field of native pastures where the settlement formed, in the region then known as the campos de Vacaria. The name Campo Grande was fixed when the district was created, in 1889.

History

Foundation

In 1870 (because of the Paraguayan War), news reached the residents of Monte Alegre de Minas, in the Triângulo Mineiro, of fertile lands for agriculture and livestock in the region then called "Campo Grande da Vacaria". This ended up pleasing José Antônio Pereira, who needed land to settle his family. On June 21, 1872, he arrived and settled on fertile, completely uninhabited lands of the Serra de Maracaju, at the confluence of two streams – later called Prosa and Segredo – today the Horto Florestal.

The city's first historian, Rosário Congro, stated that the following year João returned to Monte Alegre, leaving João Nepomuceno responsible for his ranch. On August 14, 1875, Pereira finally returned with his family (wife and eight children), slaves, and others (62 people in total). At the first ranch he had built, he now found Manuel Vieira de Sousa (Manuel Olivério) and his family, from Prata, who had arrived attracted by the news of the campos de Vacaria, together with his brothers Cândido Vieira de Souza and Joaquim Vieira de Souza, and some employees, one of whom was Joaquim Dias Moreira (Joaquim Bagage). Coming from Minas Gerais, the families united and originated the first generation of campo-grandenses.

At the end of 1877 he fulfilled a promise made during the return journey and built the first small church (rustic wattle-and-daub with clay tiles). The houses, precariously aligned, formed the first street (called Rua Velha, today Rua 26 de Agosto, which ended in a small square, the current Praça dos Imigrantes, where there was a fork forming two more roads). José Antônio Pereira, founder of the settlement, built his definitive residence at the end of the lower branch (today Barão de Melgaço Street). He died on his Bom Jardim farm on January 11, 1900, months after the political emancipation of the village (August 26, 1899).

Consolidation

From 1879, new caravans of mineiros arrived and were distributed on vacant lands, marking their claims, almost always under the guidance of the founder. They thus established the first farms of the Arraial de Santo Antônio do Campo Grande. In the center of the street, at the commerce and pharmacy belonging to Joaquim Vieira de Almeida, the local high society gathered. He was the most educated man in the village and the drafter of public and private documents. Community problems were resolved there, from which the demands to the government emerged. A correspondence requesting the emancipation of the village was authored by Joaquim Vieira de Almeida himself.

Campo Grande is located equidistant from the northern, southern, eastern, and western extremes of Mato Grosso do Sul, a factor that facilitated the construction of the region's first roads, helping it become the great crossroads or development hub of a vast area. It is considered the most important driving center of all economic and social activity in the state, positioning itself as the one with the greatest expression and cultural influence, and also the most important hub of the entire region of the former state, split in 1977. In 1950, the municipality concentrated 16.3% of the total commercial companies of Mato Grosso do Sul; in 1980, this number rose to 24.3% and, in 1997, to 34.85%. It also recorded population growth above the national average in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

The city started to develop relatively fast because of its privileged climate and location. These factors drew people from other regions of the country, especially the South, the Southeast and the Northeast regions. The settlement was officially recognized as a municipality by the State Government on August 26, 1899, and renamed Campo Grande.

Administrative formation

The district of Campo Grande was created by law no. 792, of November 23, 1889, subordinate to the municipality of Nioaque. By state resolution no. 225, of August 26, 1899, the district was elevated to the category of vila (town), detached from Nioaque; on July 16, 1918, state law no. 772 elevated the town to city status.

Throughout the 20th century, successive dismemberments gave origin to new municipalities: Ribas do Rio Pardo (1943), Rochedo (1948), and Terenos, Sidrolândia, and Jaraguari (1953). The municipality became part of Mato Grosso do Sul after the creation of the state by federal complementary law no. 31, of October 11, 1977.

Geography

Location

Campo Grande is the capital of the 21st most populous state of Brazil, Mato Grosso do Sul, and is located in the south of the Central-West region of Brazil. Geographically, the municipality of Campo Grande lies close to Brazil's border with Paraguay and Bolivia. It is located at a latitude of 20º26'34" South and a longitude of 54°38'47" West. It is equidistant from the northern, southern, eastern, and western extremes of South America, and lies 1,134 kilometres (705 miles) from Brasília. It is one hour behind Brasília and four hours behind Greenwich. It occupies a total surface of 8,082.978 square kilometres (3,120.855 square miles), equivalent to about 2.26% of the state's total area. The urban area totals 154.45 square kilometres (59.63 square miles) according to Embrapa Satellite Monitoring.

According to the regional division in force since 2017, instituted by IBGE, the municipality belongs to the Intermediate and Immediate Geographic Regions of Campo Grande. Until then, with the divisions into mesoregions and microregions in force, it was part of the microregion of Campo Grande, which in turn was included in the mesoregion of Centro-Norte de Mato Grosso do Sul.

Relief and hydrography

The original soil types constituting the municipality are dark red oxisol (latossolo), purple latossolo, quartz sands, and litholic soils. Despite being a hill city, it has a flat topography. The Serra Geral Formation is constituted by a sequence of basaltic flows that occurred between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, in the Mesozoic Era. These effusive rocks lie on eolian sandstones of the Botucatu Formation and are capped by continental, fluvial, and lacustrine sandstones. Its lowest altitude is 490 metres and its highest is 701 metres, with a mean altitude of 532 metres (1,745 feet).

Campo Grande sits on the watershed divide between the basins of the Paraná and Paraguay rivers. The Guarani Aquifer passes beneath the city, the state being the one holding the largest percentage of the aquifer within Brazilian territory. The municipality has no large rivers, being crossed only by streams, rivulets, and small rivers.

Vegetation

With a uniform geographic setting, Campo Grande is located in the subtropical zone and belongs to the domains of the savanna and deciduous tree phytogeographic region. Its native vegetation cover presents the physiognomies of dense arboreal savanna, open arboreal savanna, park savanna, and grassy-woody savanna (clean field), besides areas of ecological tension represented by savanna/seasonal forest contact and areas of anthropic formations. The original vegetation types of the municipality are the Cerrado, forests, and grasslands.

The vegetation in Campo Grande and Central Brazil is a tropical savanna called "Cerrado" that varies from pure grassland to a nearly closed canopy of medium height trees overlying grass. Since forest is the expected climax vegetation there, several theories have been given to explain the types of grassland present.

The most promising of these involve differences in soil properties, but only a few sites have been used for evaluation. The 1960s marked the beginning of the expansion of large-scale agriculture across the Cerrado. The state is one of the largest producers of soybeans in the world.

The municipality contains the 178 hectares (440 acres) Matas do Segredo State Park, created in 2000 to protect an area of cerrado forest

and the 135 hectares (330 acres) Prosa State Park, created in 2002.

Climate

The climate of Campo Grande is characterized as tropical with a dry season (type Aw according to Köppen), with two very well-defined seasons, one hot and humid in summer and another less rainy and milder in winter. Because it is very distant from the ocean, there is a strong influence of continentality, resulting in relatively high thermal amplitudes throughout the year.

In the winter months the temperature can drop considerably, with sporadic and light frosts; on certain occasions the wind chill can reach less than 0 °C, as on the early morning of July 18, 2017, when the felt temperature was −11 °C. At dawn on the same day, the felt temperature was −7 °C in the city center, and −9 °C in the western zone.

According to data from the Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia (INMET), since 1931 the lowest temperature recorded in Campo Grande was −0.9 °C (30.4 °F) on August 15, 1978, and the highest reached 41 °C (106 °F) on October 5, 2020. The largest 24-hour precipitation accumulation reached 147 mm (5.8 in) on May 30, 1986. Since September 2001 the lowest relative humidity index was 9% on the afternoons of August 22, 2006, and September 13, 2007, and the highest wind gust reached 28.4 metres per second (102 km/h) on October 15, 2021.

Campo Grande has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen: Aw), just slightly drier than a tropical monsoon climate, with a mild appearance of cold air masses on the southern edge of the tropics. It has semi-humid, hot summers, and notably seasonal, with a dry winter season from June through September, but without major irregularities in the precipitation. Its altitude a few hundred meters higher than in the surrounding swamps and its location in the interior of South America, gives a much more extreme climate than several Brazilian cities, although still moderate. In addition, the flood is one of the problems seen in the city, the result of intense rains that occur in a short period.

July brings on sunny days but cooler temperatures, with mean highs of 25 °C (77.0 °F) and lows of 14 °C (57.2 °F). Occasional near-freezing temperatures can occur on winter's coldest nights.

Demographics

In the 2022 census, the municipality had 898,100 inhabitants — a growth of 14.1% compared to the 786,797 recorded in 2010 — and a demographic density of 111.11 inhabitants/km². The IBGE estimate for July 1, 2026 is 970,843 inhabitants.

Campo Grande was also included in a study released in 2017 by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) analyzing homicide rates. According to the study, the city is among the 110 least violent cities (107th position) among Brazilian municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Considering deaths by aggression (homicides), the city recorded 170 assassinations (19.9 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and, in violent deaths from undetermined causes (MVCI), 30 assassinations (3.5 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants). In the sum of both indices, it totaled 200 assassinations (23.4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants).

Religion

The predominant religions are Catholicism and Protestantism, the two main branches of Christianity. For Catholicism, the city belongs to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Campo Grande, and its patron saint is Santo Antônio (born in Lisbon and deceased in Padua). However, Campo Grande has one of the largest evangelical/Protestant populations in Brazil: 30.5%. According to the 2022 Brazilian census, the religious composition of the city was 45.55% Catholics, 34.26% Evangelicals or Protestants, 2.99% Spiritists, 0.87% Umbandists or Candomblecists, 0% traditional religion, 5.85% other religion, 10.26% irreligious, 0.08% unknown, and 0.14% undeclared.

Government and politics

Campo Grande has the largest electoral college in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Its total electorate is 509,910 (238,974 men and 270,936 women), belonging to the Comarca of Campo Grande.

Executive

The executive branch in Campo Grande is represented by the mayor, vice-mayor, and municipal secretaries, who are responsible for the promulgation and application of municipal laws. On August 25, 2015, then-mayor Gilmar Olarte was removed from office after a judicial order carried out by the Gaeco. Gilmar and other businessmen were accused of paying city councilors for the impeachment of Alcides Bernal, the elected mayor. Thus, on August 26, the city's anniversary, Alcides Bernal returned to be the city's mayor by judicial determination. In 2022, with the resignation of Marquinhos Trad to run for state governor, then-vice-mayor Adriane Lopes took over the city government and, in the 2024 elections, was re-elected in a runoff.

Legislative

The legislative branch in Campo Grande is represented by the city council (câmara de vereadores), which is responsible for the appreciation and approval of municipal laws. The city is represented by a total of 29 councilors.

Judiciary

Campo Grande is the seat of the State Judiciary (Court of Justice of the State). It is also the seat of the Regional Labor Court of the 24th Region, that is, of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The State Court of Accounts, although headquartered in Campo Grande, does not belong to the Judiciary nor is it an organ of the Legislative branch, since it has administrative and financial autonomy; its function is to assist the Legislature and oversee the application of public money. It is also the seat of the Audit of the 9th Military Judicial Circuit, an organ of the Military Justice of the Union, a specialized branch of the Federal Judiciary, charged with judging military crimes committed in the states of Mato Grosso do Sul and Mato Grosso, its jurisdictional area.

Economy

Most of the city's active economic labor is absorbed by the tertiary sector (commerce and services). In spite of that, the primary and secondary sectors, especially agribusiness, still play an important role in the local economy. The farming of bovine livestock supplies local slaughterhouses, which in turn allows Campo Grande to export meat to other states in Brazil and abroad. In addition to food processing and agribusiness, construction and non-metallic mineral processing are important. The area's most important crops are soy, rice and manioc. Recently, sugar cane is becoming important as well. According to IBGE, Campo Grande has a total of 11,657 commercial and 1,300 industrial enterprises.

The city's GDP was R$ 20.7 billion (about US$ 9.59 billion) in 2013, ranks as the richest city in the state, the third in the Central-West region of the country, and the 33rd richest in Brazil (2013).

Per capita income was R$24.839 in 2013 (about US$11,511).

In 2023, the GDP of Campo Grande at current prices was R$42.27 billion, the largest in Mato Grosso do Sul; the corresponding GDP per capita is approximately R$47,065.77.

The Municipal Agricultural Production recorded, in 2023, 168,827 hectares of planted area and a production value of R$1.08 billion, with emphasis on soybeans (R$856.1 million) and corn (R$154.9 million). In livestock, the cattle herd was 428,639 head, besides 288,769 poultry and 48,445 pigs.

The economically active population of the municipality totals 333,597 people (189,202 men and 144,396 women) and its consumption potential is 0.58% (est. 2006). In general, most of the active workforce of the municipality is absorbed by the tertiary sector (trade in goods and provision of services). Civil construction also plays a very important role in the local economy, as does the public service, due to the volume of civil service examinations.

The current growth scenario means the city may have conditions to offer more jobs, but its challenge is to grow in a planned way without this boom becoming a social catastrophe and removing one of the main attractions for investment: the quality of life. An optimistic example can be seen in the popular supermarkets distributed throughout the city's neighborhoods. Low-income families drive local commerce, a reflection of the moment of prosperity of the local population. The construction of four new shopping malls (Campo Grande, Norte-Sul, Pátio Central, and Bosque dos Ipês) in the city is expected to generate another five thousand jobs.

Tourism

Campo Grande has infrastructure for traditional, event, and historical tourism, with options of hotels and rural and urban leisure facilities. The city is one of the starting points for those who intend to visit the Pantanal and hosts national and international events. Rural tourism includes ranches, inns, fishing parks, ecological trails, waterfalls, extreme sports, and horseback rides, with contact with the culture of the local peões (cowboys) and sale of rural handicrafts.

In the early 2010s, the city's hotel network totaled about 50 units and 4,000 beds. In that period, investments were announced to expand the offer, such as a hotel of the Metropolitan chain on Afonso Pena Avenue and a Holiday Inn in front of the Campo Grande Air Force Base; the city even applied to be a sub-host of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, but was not chosen.

In 2015, the Hotel Deville Prime Campo Grande was inaugurated on Mato Grosso Avenue, next to the Indigenous Nations Park, with 191 apartments and four suites, six event rooms, an outdoor pool, restaurant, bar, and gym.

Infrastructure

Health

In health, the city of Campo Grande has various medical modalities distributed across several health units, including hospitals, maternity wards, and emergency rooms. However, its main public centers suffer from the overcrowding of many people seeking care in the city, including patients from the state's interior. There are 843 health units (27 of them hospitals), distributed between public and private. Regarding the number of beds, Campo Grande offers a total of 2,463 hospital beds. Campo Grande is also one of the Brazilian capitals best served in cemeteries, totaling eight, between public and private.

Education

Portuguese is the official national language, and thus the primary language taught in schools. But English and Spanish are part of the official high school curriculum. In basic education, according to the MEC, there are 449 schools of basic, primary, secondary, and vocational education. The municipality offers full-time daycare centers for children from 6 months to 5 years old. In higher education, there are three public institutions: IFMS – Federal Institute of Mato Grosso do Sul, UFMS – Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, and UEMS – State University of Mato Grosso do Sul; the others are private: Rede Anhanguera, UCDB, and Estácio de Sá.

The city has several universities. The most notable ones are:

Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS) (Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul);

Universidade Estadual de Mato Grosso do Sul (UEMS) (State University of Mato Grosso do Sul);

Universidade Católica Dom Bosco (UCDB) (Dom Bosco Catholic University);

Faculdade Campo Grande (FCG) (Campo Grande College);

Centro Universitário de Campo Grande (UNAES) (Academic Center of Campo Grande).

Universidade para Desenvolvimento do Estado e da Regiao do Pantanal (UNIDERP) (Academic Center of Campo Grande).

Federal Institute of Mato Grosso do Sul (IFMS) (Institutum Foederale Mato Grosso do Sul)

Sanitation

The city's water supply and sewage collection and treatment are operated by the concessionaire Águas Guariroba. The quality of the municipality's surface waters is monitored by the municipal program Córrego Limpo, which maintains sampling points distributed across the micro-basins of the urban area.

Communications

The city has a communications infrastructure covering newspapers, magazines, radios, news sites, and television stations. Regarding internet, Campo Grande has broadband connections and public access points in the main squares and urban bus terminals. LAN houses (network gaming and internet access houses) have practically been reduced to the neighborhoods, due to mobile 3G and 4G access.

Transport

The interurban transport serving the municipality is divided into road and air. By car, its main highways are BR-060, BR-163, and BR-262, besides the state highways. In long-distance road transport, the city has the Campo Grande Bus Terminal, where about 20 companies operate with lines to various regions of the country.

The Campo Grande International Airport is the largest in the state, with a 2,600 m runway, a 6,000 m² boarding area, 4 transport companies, and is 6 km from the Center. The Santa Maria airfield, located east of Campo Grande in the rural area, receives small private and agricultural planes. The Teruel airfield, located in the south of the city, 15 km from the central region, also receives small private and agricultural planes.

Urban transport in Campo Grande is represented by 4 modalities: the collective buses, with a fleet of about 600 vehicles operating on 150 lines and 10 terminals; the Executive service, with a fleet of 25 vehicles operating on 10 lines; the taxi system, with about a thousand vehicles and 100 stands; and motorcycle taxis, also with a thousand vehicles and 100 stands.

The operation of Campo Grande International Airport is shared with Campo Grande Air Force Base. The airport has two runways.

The airport can receive medium-sized jets such as the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320, but occasional operations of larger jets have occurred. Operations are mostly domestic, but there are also a few flights to Bolivia and Paraguay.

Campo Grande Air Force Base - ALA5, one of their most important bases of the Brazilian Air Force, is located in Campo Grande.

Campo Grande is served by a system of railway transport under administration of the Novoeste company, interconnecting with other cities in the state, in a line that goes from Bauru and São Paulo state through Campo Grande all the way to Corumbá and on to Bolivia. This mode of transport has had significant effects on the transport infrastructure, allowing the export of products to other centres of production and consumption. Currently, no passenger services are operated, only freight trains.

Culture

The culture of Campo Grande is marked by the diversity of customs, music, and gastronomy and reflects singular cultural traits due to the heritage left by the indigenous peoples and various races, such as European, Syrian-Lebanese, Japanese, Paraguayan, and Bolivian, and by migrants from other states who settled here.

Festas Juninas were introduced to Northeastern Brazil by the Portuguese and the custom spread to the rest of the country, including Campo-Grande, where festivities take place with the usual fare of typical foods and decoration, rural costumes, music, dancing, a bonfire, and fireworks.

The Campo Grande Film Festival is held annually in the months of January and February since 2004. It focuses on independent cinema, presenting Brazilian and foreign films alike, as well as regional and short films.

Monuments

The monuments are landmarks of its history and perpetuate the importance of the peoples who contributed to the urban evolution of Campo Grande. Some buildings are intertwined with the city's history. The Aviator Monument at the Campo Grande Air Force Base honors Lieutenant Aviator Chaves Filho, Deputy Commander of the Base. The Monument to the Indian at the Indigenous Nations Park symbolizes and honors indigenous culture. The Japanese Immigration Monument at the Praça da República brings the mark of the arrival of the Japanese colony to the state in the early 20th century. The work, which represents a model of a typical Japanese house, is by sculptor Yutaka Toyota and is located in the central area of the Praça da República, having been inaugurated on August 26, 1979, in honor of the 70 years of Japanese immigration.

The Ox Cart Monument, also known as the Monument of the Immigrants, is considered the landmark of the city's foundation. This monument marks the place where the first families of migrants arrived in Campo Grande, who came from Minas Gerais to explore the region. Conceived by plastic artist Neide Ono and built in 1996, the monument is represented by an ox cart, the means of locomotion used by the city's colonizers, and is located next to the Horto Florestal. The Pantanal Sul Monument at the Campo Grande International Airport is represented by two tuiuiús, the symbol of the Pantanal. The Obelisk was built in honor of the city's founders and inaugurated on August 26, 1933, under Mayor Ytrio Corrêa da Costa, in a project by Engineer Newton Cavalcante, then commander of the Military Circumscription. It was listed as Historical Heritage of Campo Grande on September 26, 1975. The Central Clock, originally built at the confluence of 14 de Julho Street with Afonso Pena Avenue, was a reference point of the city, where large meetings and political rallies took place. The existing replica, inaugurated in 2000, imitates the original, which measured 5 meters in height, had a clock with four faces, and was demolished in the name of progress.

Cuisine

The cuisine of Campo Grande incorporates various flavors. In the city, restaurants have incorporated recipes developed with regional products into the local menu. An example is gnocchi of cassava with dried meat sauce. Also noteworthy is the beef churrasco (due to the strong gaúcho influence) with cassava (a habit acquired from the indigenous peoples). To complete it, a few drops of shoyu, a Japanese soy-based seasoning (shoyu = soy in Japanese), which has become popular among campo-grandenses. From Japan, particularly from the Ryukyu Islands, came another typical dish: Okinawa soba, a hot dish with noodles, pork, broth, and seasonings, adapted to local taste, Campo Grande being the first city in Brazil to have this type of restaurant. Fish also have gastronomic importance, with pacu, dourado, pintado, and piranha being very common. Sopa paraguaia, also very common, is a type of cake with corn, onion, and cheese. Another common dish is chipa, similar to pão de queijo. As a result of the Lebanese community, the consumption of Arab cuisine foods is common, with many typical restaurants in the city center, for example on 7 de Setembro Street; in Campo Grande there are many grocery stores and restaurants selling esfihas, kibbeh, shawarma (Arab sandwich), belewa (Arab sweet), grape-leaf rolls, and other typical dishes of this cuisine. Other common dishes are those made with pequi, such as rice or chicken with pequi (careful not to hurt yourself with the thorns inside the fruit), besides guariroba and rice carreteiro with charque.

As a typical drink there is tereré (made with an infusion of yerba mate and cold water), of Paraguayan origin and from the Guarani peoples; it is served in a guampa, usually of ox horn, and with a bombilla, easy to prepare and drunk in gatherings among friends and family. There are well-defined rules in a tereré circle that must be respected. The drink is consumed especially on weekends, accompanied by regional music.

Architecture

Campo Grande has wide, broad avenues that cross in north-south and east-west directions, forming a design similar to a chessboard. The city experienced a development boom in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, a condition that also facilitated the construction of the first access roads, being a great pole attracting jobs. In the 1990s, it languished in the absence of economic prospects, even suffering a deficit in growth statistics, recovering from the end of that decade. In the 2020s, the population approached one million inhabitants, according to IBGE estimates.

In recent years there has been a great growth of constructions aimed at classes A and B, exceeding R$1 billion in the implementation phase alone. This is due to the following reasons: saturation of the large centers (which no longer have space for certain economic activities); economic stability and increased income of the local population; municipal and state incentives, ranging from exemption from ISS (Service Tax) and IPTU (Urban Property Tax) to donation of areas and execution of earthworks.

However, the horizontal expansion of the city ended up causing low population density, large distances, neighborhoods with little infrastructure, and numerous vacant lots. According to urban planners, another Campo Grande would fit inside itself. There are studies to urbanize the city's voids.

Literature

Biblioteca Dr. Manuel de Oliveira Gomes (Public Prosecutor's Office of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul): the library's collection currently consists of 5,820 works in general, divided between books, magazines, pamphlets, reference works, and CD-ROMs; it also holds the collections of the Diários da Justiça de MS, Diário Oficial de MS, and Diário Oficial da União (since February 1979), and is open to the public for research.

União Brasileira de Escritores – MS Section: it emerged from the former MEI – Movement of Independent Writers and currently brings together writers from the capital and the interior of the state. In 1986 it held the Night of Poetry of Campo Grande as a non-competitive show, which from 1989 was transformed into a poetry contest covering text and recitation. The event, which became a state reference, today takes place at national level. It is carried out thanks to a partnership with the Campo Grande Culture Foundation, which in recent years has brought great names for lectures, such as Adélia Prado, Waly Salomão, Arnaldo Antunes, Nélida Piñon, Gabriel o Pensador, and Affonso Romano de Sant'Anna.

Academia Sul-Mato-Grossense de Letras: nicknamed "Casa Luís Alexandre de Oliveira" with the acronym A.S.L., it is the successor of the Academy of Letters and History of Campo Grande, founded on October 11, 1972; since 1979 it has had its current name. It is an association of unlimited duration, exclusively literary and cultural, legally constituted as a legal entity. It is the highest literary association representing the state of Mato Grosso do Sul before the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Rede Brasileira de Cooperação ao Desenvolvimento – UNEPE: headquartered in Campo Grande, it was created in the early 1980s and, in partnership with the public authorities and the private sector, the entity develops actions contributing to improving the quality of life of the resident population, especially in the semi-arid region of the Northeast, in the Cerrado, and in the southern Pantanal of Mato Grosso do Sul. Unepe works in many fields – ranging from social assistance, economic and employment promotion, through fostering the creation of laws and promoting democracy, peace, security, and reconstruction in case of disasters, to guaranteeing assistance, health, and education for all, combating hunger and misery, humanitarian aid, and environmental preservation. With its partners it develops management and logistics services, acting to negotiate the various interests of communities. In emergency situations, it mobilizes society and civil defense agencies, carrying out aid programs and projects in cases of catastrophes.

Sports

The city has reasonable planning of sports infrastructure: it hosts important sports and motoring events every year such as Formula Truck and Stock Car. The largest university stadium in Latin America is also located in the city. It has several other sports facilities that further boost sports tourism and attract thousands of people.

Motorsport

The city is served by the Autódromo Internacional Orlando Moura, which is 15 km west of the Center of Campo Grande and has a track 3,433 metres long. It receives every year the national stage of Stock Car, Formula Truck, and Motovelocidade, and by the Kartódromo Ayrton Senna, which is 15 km south of the Center of Campo Grande, in the Cidade Morena neighborhood, with a 930-metre track.

Football

As in all of Brazil, the most popular sport in Campo Grande is football. Principal football hub of the state, Campo Grande has all the infrastructure related to this sport, with several stadiums and clubs. It was a candidate to be a sub-host of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil but lost to Cuiabá, which was also one of the candidates. The city has a major football stadium, Estádio Universitário Pedro Pedrossian, popularly known as "Morenão" ("the big brown" in Portuguese, after the city's nickname and the Brazilian custom of often giving names derived of augmentatives to football stadiums). The stadium was opened in 1971 and accommodates up to 45,000 people. There are five other minor stadiums in the city, which occasionally host competition games.

The main municipal teams are Comercial and Operário, as they were the ones that played in the Brazilian Championship, followed, currently, by Cene. Other professional teams of the municipality are: Moreninhas, Portuguesa, Campo Grande, Taveirópolis (inactive), Guaicurus, and MS Saad (inactive), and the capital's newest club, Novoperário Futebol Clube. The city has some stadiums, such as Morenão; Estádio das Moreninhas (located in Parque Jacques da Luz) and Olho do Furacão (owned by Cene). Other venues, such as Elias Gadia and Belmar Fidalgo, were transformed into squares.

Additionally, there are 45 multisport playing fields in the city, in clubs, cultural associations and public squares.

Other sports

For the practice of other sports, there are several gymnasiums spread across the city, such as Obra Social Paulo VI; Centro de Treinamento Esportivo; Centro Poliesportivo da Mace; Ginásio Clube do Trabalhador; Ginásio Moreninho (Cidade Universitária de Campo Grande), belonging to UFMS (Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul); Ginásio Guanandizão; Ginásio do Parque Ayrton Senna; Ginásio do SESC Camillo Bonni; and Dom Bosco.

Volta das Nações

"Volta das nações" is a mini-marathon of 21 km that takes place at Parque das Nações Indígenas every October, where around 26.4 thousand people participate, including professional athletes from Kenya and other parts of the world.

Notable people

Rafael Silva, judoka

Leonardo de Deus, swimmer

Müller, footballer

Hoover Orsi (born 1978), racing driver

Aracy Balabanian (1940–2023), Brazilian actress of Armenian descent

International relations

Twin towns – Sister cities

Campo Grande is twinned with: