NEVES

city, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on the eastern shore of the Baa de Guanabara opposite Rio de Janeiro city, just southwest of So Gonalo. Originally a Guarulhos Indian village, Neves in 1566 became the site of one of the first chapels constructed in the Baa de Guanabara region, the Nossa Senhora de Neves (Our Lady of the Snows) chapel, built by Joo Afonso Malheiro. A suburb of Rio de Janeiro as well as of Niteri, the largest eastern bay city, just to the south, Neves, together with So Gonalo to the northeast, now constitutes the most important suburban industrial centre in the Greater Rio area. It has an important nonmetallic-mineral industry (extraction and processing of barite, quartz, ceramic clays, granite dimension stone), with a large metallurgical plant and shipyards; other industries produce machinery, rubber, and chemical and pharmaceutical products. Railroads and highways link Neves with downtown Niteri as well as with inland communities. It is the terminus of a railroad that runs eastward to Cape Frio. Pop. (1980 prelim.) 138,130.