The complexo do alemão, translatable a 'complex of the german,' is a very expansive favela grouping, spanning the neighborhoods of bonsucesso, inhaúma,  ramos, olaria and penha, in the zona norte of the city. a large community covering almost 300 hectares and seventy thousand inhabitants, it boasts an iconic cable car and is currently undergoing severalinitiatives in order to allow its economic potential to flourish.

Until the late 1940s the area was a large plot of farmland, owned by a Polish immigrant who was mistaken for a German due to his appearance, an error which led to the current name of the region. In the 1960s there was a big influx of immigrants from the Northeast of the country, who settled on the land.