GOIÁS, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - Archdiocese and city, capital of the homonymous state in the central highlands of Brazil. It has an area of 227,230 sq. km. with a population of 479,661, of whom 455,677 are Catholics, distributed in 35 parishes with 19 diocesan priests and 60 regular clergy, a seminary, 11 male religious communities and 14 female (1949).
Erected as a prelature on 6 Dec. 1745, it was raised to a diocese by Leo XII on 15 July 1826, as suffragan first of Bahia, then of Mariana. Pope Pius XI, with the apostolic constitution *Quae in faciliorem* dated 18 Nov. 1932, erected Goiás as a metropolitan see, separating it from the ecclesiastical province of Mariana, and assigning as its suffragans the diocese of Porto Nacional and the prelatures *nullius* of Bananal, Jataí and São José do Alto Tocantins. The population is chiefly engaged in cattle raising and agriculture.
The cathedral is dedicated to St Anne; other churches include those of Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Our Lady of the Rosary and St Francis; the asylum of St Vincent de Paul is particularly sumptuous.