while there are various explanations for the origin of its name, one of the more popular versions gives responsibility to the portuguese traders.

during the 15th and 16th centuries, when sugar cane was regularly exported from brazil, cane sugar were shaped into a cone blocks to be shipped to europe - these little blocks were termed pão de açúcar, and the mountain's likeliness to these refined sugar loaves naturally led to the same name.

in the early 1900s a brazilian engineer named agosto ferreira ramos had the idea of linking sugar loaf mountain to morro da urca by a cable car - within only a few short years he was able to transform his idea into reality.