The area covered by the park was defined in 1961 and covers parts of the municipalities of Canarana, Paranatinga, São Félix do Araguaia, São José do Xingu, Gaúcha do Norte, Feliz Natal, Querência, União do Sul, Nova Ubiratã and Marcelândia in the state of Mato Grosso.

On the east side the deforested or unforested area extends northeast marking the approximate southeastern edge of the Amazon forest.

The Upper Xingu region was a highly self-organized pre-Columbian anthropogenic landscape, including deposits of fertile agricultural terra preta, black soil in Portuguese, with a network of roads and polities each of which covered about 250 square kilometers.

In 1884 Karl von den Steinen headed northwest from Cuiabá to some Christianized Bakairi on the upper Teles Pires.

The Villas-Bôas brothers and three anthropologists and activists had the radical idea of creating a vast area of forest protected solely for its indigenous inhabitants and invited scientists.

Nine years of bitter political and media struggle ensued, until a new president of Brazil, Jânio Quadros (a family friend of the Villas-Bôas) rammed it through as a presidential decree, but at a greatly reduced area to satisfy the state government.

The park remains an island of forest and rivers increasingly threatened by polluting activity and deforestation outside its perimeter.

[1] The people living within the boundaries of the park are the Kamaiurá (355), Aweti (138), Mehinako (199), Wauja (321), Yawalapiti (208), Kalapalo (417), Kuikuro (415), Matipu (119), Nahukwá (105) and Trumai (120), who all share a common cultural system (population figures as of 2002).

Also living within the park are the Ikpeng (formerly Txikao) (319), Kaiabi (745), Kisêdjê (formerly Suia) (334), Yudja (formerly Juruna) (248), Tapayuna and Naruvotu peoples (population figures as of 2002).

In the sixty years after contact with Von den Steinen, the Xingu peoples had been struck by alien diseases such as measles and influenza that reduced their small populations by two-thirds.

The Villas-Bôas brothers completely reversed this decline through an agreement with Professor Roberto Baruzzi of a São Paulo teaching hospital, whereby for over fifty years teams of volunteer doctors have inoculated and tended the Xingu peoples to the highest medical standards.

After distinguished service in the First World War, Fawcett spent several years pursuing his fantasy in the north-east and other parts of Brazil, before the 1925 incursion to the Xingu.

The disappearance of a British lieutenant-colonel, seeking a mystical city in Amazonian forests, caused a media sensation.