Rio de Janeiro is one of the worlds most beautiful cities. The native Rio people call themselves Cariocas.
Cariocas was the name the Tupi Indians gave to the funny-looking Portuguese settlers shortly after they arrived. It comes from ´kara´i´oca´, which means the white house, in reference to the white masonry the newcomers used in their building. The name stuck, and today Carioca are Carioca.

Rio de Janeiro with its beaches, restaurants, shopping and entertainments is a very popular resort for tourists. All the green mountains and the beaches makes Rio look like many small suburbs, instead of the big city that it really is.

The number of inhabitants is very hard to estimate because of the many favelas, shanty-built towns where all the poor people live, but the number of inhabitants in Rio lays around 15 million people.
If you want to go outside the central parts of Rio you can go to Buzios for a couple of days.
Buzios is a small tourist country a couple of hours away from Rio with very relaxing environments.