Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro

Santa Cruz
Neighborhood
Clockwise: South door Hangar do Zeppelin; Princess Isabel Palace; Araujo's Mansion, Wallace Fountain
Coordinates: 22°55′13″S 43°41′06″W / 22.92028°S 43.68500°W / -22.92028; -43.68500
Country	Brazil
State	Rio de Janeiro
Municipality	Rio de Janeiro
Neighborhood	West Zone
Administrative Region	Santa Cruz
Area
• Total	12,504.43 ha (30,899.12 acres)
Population  (2010)
• Total	217,333
• Density	1,700/km2 (4,500/sq mi)

Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) is an extensive and populous neighborhood of the high class, lower middle and low in the West Zone of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the farthest from the center of Rio de Janeiro. Cut by the Santa Cruz extension of the urban passenger rail network of the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, it has a very diverse landscape, with commercial areas, residential and industrial.^[1]

The neighborhood of Santa Cruz is the seat of the administrative region of Santa Cruz, comprising the neighborhoods of Santa Cruz, Paciência and Sepetiba. The administrative region, in turn, belongs to the West Zone subprefecture.

Since the installation of Itaguaí Port, is a rapidly developing neighborhood.^[2] It is 445 years old, and has important preserved monuments. But it is a place of contrasts. It is one of the most populated districts, and at the same time, due to its vast land area, one of the least densely populated; has an industrial district, but in its landscape still rules many unexplored areas.

Its HDI in 2000 was 0.742, the 119 placed in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, among 126 areas analyzed.