In the 1970s, the whole Brazilian Amazon was opened up by road construction and the exploitation of its rich resources increased considerably. Jan Kleinpenning traces the history of this development, which began in 1972 with the opening of the first part of the Ruta Transamazônica, as well as its effects on population growth and distribution. He lays a particular focus on the programme of supervised agrarian colonisation meant to help small farmers and landless families from the densely populated and poverty-stricken Northeast of the country. Ron Milder’s contribution to this volume examines the effects on Altamira, one of the small towns along the Ruta.