Rio de Janeiro: Location and Importance

A complete one-hour lesson from my 18-lesson AQA GCSE Geography Urban Issues and Challenges series, free so you can see how the whole series works before you buy.

The big question: what makes a city important: its size, its money, or the way the world pictures it? Rio de Janeiro is the test case.

What students do

• Locate Rio on two original maps and describe its position (Brazil’s south-east Atlantic coast, on Guanabara Bay).
• Learn why “Rio’s population” has three correct answers. At the 2022 census the município had 6,211,223 people, the metropolitan region has about 11.7–11.8 million (derived; sources differ on its boundary) and the state of Rio de Janeiro had 16,055,174.
• Sort Rio’s importance at regional, national and international scales, using figures that each carry their geography, date and source.
• Weigh the evidence for whether Rio is still important, then write a 6-mark “assess” answer.

What is included

• A 38-slide editable PowerPoint, with answers and timings in the slide notes.
• A 2-page resource sheet (Word to edit, PDF to print) with two original maps.
• Teacher notes (Word, 5 pages): a 60-minute timeline with slide numbers, all answers, the mark scheme, common misconceptions, a specification map, sources and a “check before you teach” list.

Things to know

• It is written for AQA GCSE Geography 8035 (Paper 2, Section A, specification 3.2.1, the NEE city case study). It is a GCSE resource, not KS3.
• The exam questions are original and are not taken from AQA papers. This resource is not endorsed by AQA.
• The starter quiz recaps Lessons 1–2 of the series (urbanisation and megacities). It can be answered from KS3 knowledge plus the answer slide that follows it.**

If it works for you, the full 18-lesson pack (and the bundle with homework and retrieval) is on my shop page.