Porangatu

 city, municipality

Parangatu is a town in Goiás state, Brazil. The first settlement began in the eighteenth century with the discovery of gold in the region. Attacks from the local Indians, the Canoeiros, kept the settlement, called Descoberto, from developing. Until 1933 it was a district belonging to Pilar de Goiás, when it became part of the municipality of Santana, later changed to Uruaçu. In 1943 Descoberto was changed to Porangatu, from Tupi-Guarani, meaning "poran", beautiful, and "gatu", landscape. In 1948 it was dismembered from Uruaçu. With the building of the Belem to Brasília highway (BR-153) in 1958 Porangatu grew quickly to become the most important commercial center of this new region that was opening up to migrants from the south.