Belo Horizonte Portuguese for 'beautiful horizon', Belo Horizonte is built on several hills and completely surrounded by mountains. It is the third-largest metropolitan area in the country, a bustling beehive of activity with wide, tree-lined avenues. Planned and constructed in the 1890s, Belo Horizonte today is renowned for its striking contrast between contemporary and classical buildings. It is also famous for its non-stop nightlife. The city offers attractive leisure areas, exquisite handcrafts, deliciously diverse cuisine, and theatres boasting passionate artistic-cultural productions. In the area surrounding Belo Horizonte there are parks of great natural beauty such as Mangabeiras. Home to a vast native forest, this park provides an astonishing view of the city. There is also the Mata do Jambeiro nature reserve extending over 912 hectares, and housing more than one hundred species of birds and ten different species of mammals. The city is also a leading cultural centre, with more than three universities, a historical museum, numerous libraries, and sports stadiums.