[4] The discover registered the land and established a ranch on the left bank of the river, which he named "Fazenda das Caldas".

Caldas Novas is known throughout Brazil as one of the largest hydrothermal resorts in the world so in the high season the city receives as many as 100,000 tourists and at carnival as many as 300,000 people.

The infrastructure of the city has more than 80 hotels and pensions (12,000 beds), (many with heated swimming pools and all with hot water produced by the natural thermal system), chalets, clubs, nightclubs, bars and restaurants.

In the United Nations Human Development Index Caldas Novas had a rating of 0.802,which ranked it 10 out of a total of 242 municipalities in the state of Goiás.

In 1722, Bartolomeu Bueno da Silva, son of the famous bandeirante, Anhangüera, turning off the trail blazed by his father years before, discovered the thermal springs that form the Rio Quente.

For years it was thought that a volcano had existed in the area in whose crater rainwater infiltrated, heating at great depths and then returning to the surface by way of cracks in the rock.

Studies show that the water is formed by rainfall that is stored in a layer of quartzite and due to pressure is sent to the surface in a column 600 meters.