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​Sinop, Mato Grosso, Brazil |
Sinop is a city of 125,000 people located 400 miles north of Cuiabá, the state capital of Mato Grosso.
The city was founded in 1974 and the growth has been impressive. Sinop has a diverse economic environment. It sits at the northern edge of the new frontier. It has a mix of lumber mills, rice processors, soybean elevators, slaughter houses, and cotton gins. One can see a truck load of logs from the frontier followed by a load of soybeans harvested from newly cleared land near the city. Most of the soybeans from this area are shipped south. However during the dry season soybeans are shipped north to Santarém. Just to the North of Sinop the paved road ends so only during May though September can trucks make the trip north on dirt roads. The plan is for the multi-national grain companies in partnership with state and federal governments to fund the paving of BR163 to the north all the way to the Amazon River.
The city has five universities several new hospitals and public schools. The city is well positioned to become the new capital of a new AG STATE within Brazil. There are plans to divide the state of Mato Grosso by and east/west boundary at about the center of the state. The boundary would be located just to the south of a city called Nova Mutum. The Brazilian government has a radar station located at Sinop to help monitor the rate of clearing inside the Amazon rain forest.