The land that became Nova Friburgo was not empty when the settlers arrived. The Coroado Puri people lived in these mountains, a subgroup of the Puri with their own customs and language, moving through the forests and fishing the high-altitude streams. The royal decree that brought the Swiss made no meaningful provision for them. As happened across colonial Brazil, the indigenous residents were pushed to the margins, displaced by the clearing of land for European farms, and eventually absorbed into the broader diaspora of dispossessed peoples who became part of Brazil's complex racial history. The Alpine-style buildings of present-day Nova Friburgo sit on ground that was Puri country for centuries before any Swiss farmer sowed his first potato here.

The Morro Queimado farm in Cantagalo district was chosen because its climate and terrain resembled the Swiss home country - cool, mountainous, fit for European crops and European nerves. In 1822, Brazil declared independence from Portugal. The imperial government of Pedro I continued the colonization policy. In May 1824, eighty German families originally assigned to Bahia arrived unexpectedly in Nova Friburgo for unknown reasons, thickening the Germanic character of the town. Italians, Portuguese, and a small Syrian community followed. By 1890, the settlement had grown large enough to be elevated to city status. The Baron of Nova Friburgo brought the Leopoldina Railroad through in 1872, connecting the mountains to Rio de Janeiro and allowing Cantagalo coffee to reach global markets. Agriculture anchored the economy until industrialists arrived around 1910 and pivoted the town toward manufacturing.

Today Nova Friburgo is known nationally as the capital of the undergarment industry. The origin story is mid-twentieth century: Swiss and German textile traditions grafted onto Brazilian manufacturing yielded a cluster of lingerie factories that now produce enormous variety and volume, with local brands moving into export markets. Textile mills and metallurgical operations fill out the industrial base. Agriculture continues alongside industry, with the municipality ranking as Brazil's second-largest flower producer, surpassed only by Holambra in São Paulo state. Vegetable farming and goat raising persist in the countryside. The district of Lumiar, an hour outside the city, has become one of Rio state's most important ecotourism centers, drawing rafters and canoers to the rivers Macaé and Bonito.

On 11 January 2011, the rains that had been falling for days collapsed the hillsides. Mudslides tore through neighborhoods. The 2011 floods in the mountain region of Rio de Janeiro killed at least 916 people across several municipalities, including at least 424 in Nova Friburgo alone - the hardest-hit municipality. National news reports confirmed the toll as the biggest natural disaster in Brazilian history, with over 900 dead and over 200 missing across the region. Whole houses disappeared. The survivors were left for days without water, electricity, food, or cooking gas. The city rebuilt - houses, roads, retaining walls - but the slopes above Nova Friburgo carry scars still visible from altitude, and families here mark anniversaries no tourist brochure mentions.

The tourist reason to visit Nova Friburgo is the climate. Annual average temperature sits at 19 degrees Celsius, with humid mild summers and dry cool winters under the Köppen Cwb subtropical highland classification. The coldest temperature ever recorded here was -1.4 degrees Celsius, on 8 August 2014 - properly cold by Brazilian standards. Suspiro Square holds the country's largest chairlift. The Pedra Riscada, the Sitting Dog Stone at Furnas do Catete, and the Vale dos Frades in Três Picos State Park draw climbers and day-hikers. Casa Suíça preserves architectural memory of the original settlers. FRIALP trains cheesemakers. Bräun and Bräun still serves Alpine dishes. A 1940 photograph of Alberto Braune Avenue looks like a Swiss mountain town with tropical trees in the background - which is, essentially, what Nova Friburgo has always been.