By the late 1700s, the Portuguese crown was under international pressure over what was happening to the indigenous peoples of Brazil. King José I ordered Governor Luís Diogo Lobo da Silva to organize a more peaceful approach. In November 1767, Father Manoel de Jesus Maria was assigned to convert the Coroado, Coropó, and Purí peoples of the Pomba River basin to Catholicism - which, in the cold ledger of colonial policy, meant making the land safer for future Portuguese settlers. Captain Francisco Pires de Farinho guided the priest through forests he already knew from earlier, less friendly expeditions. Land grants began to flow after 1797. The indigenous peoples who had lived there were gradually displaced, enslaved, or killed. The arrow-grass reed that gave the place its name outlived them all.

In 1805, Captain Antonio Januário Carneiro and his brother-in-law Commander José de Faria Alvim Cesário acquired several land grants and brought their families, enslaved people, and livestock to the area. By Vatican-Portuguese agreement, new settlements in the colonies needed a church before anything else. Carneiro led the petition for permission to build one, and on 3 November 1815 the request was granted. He brought workers by giving them land, housing, and food while they labored. The chapel was named for Saint Januarius - São Januário - and the village became Capela de São Januário de Ubá. It was elevated to parish on 7 April 1841, recognized as a village on 17 June 1853, and incorporated as a municipality on 3 July 1857.

Ubá's economy has pivoted more than once. The city was once one of Brazil's great tobacco producers, and traces of that history linger in old warehouses and family names. Today it hosts one of the main furniture-industry clusters in the country, anchoring the economic and cultural center of the Ubá microregion. The population was 116,797 in 2020. And then there is the Ubá mango - manga Ubá - a specific cultivar native to the region, prized across Brazil for its richness and sweet complexity. It flavors ice cream, sorbet, juice, and fine restaurant desserts from São Paulo to Recife. Walking through a Brazilian supermarket produce section and spotting manga Ubá on the sign is a small moment of geographic pride for anyone from this corner of Minas Gerais.

Ubá sits in the Zona da Mata mesoregion of Minas Gerais, 290 kilometers southeast of Belo Horizonte and 284 kilometers north of Rio de Janeiro. Most of the municipality drains into the Paraíba do Sul River basin, with a small portion draining toward the Doce. The Ubá River - named for the same arrow-grass as the city - crosses from northwest to southeast and handles most of the city's drainage. The altitude ranges from 295 meters to 875 meters, with only 5% of the municipal area flat. The rest is rugged highland. The climate is tropical, averaging 18 degrees Celsius annually, and between November and February temperatures can push past 40 degrees. Ubá is the warmest city in the Zona da Mata.

Several Brazilians who went on to national fame came from Ubá. Ary Barroso, the composer whose Aquarela do Brasil became one of the most recognizable Brazilian songs in the world, was born here in 1903 - a boy who grew up among the coffee plantations and ended up writing the melody Disney animated for Saludos Amigos. Mauro Mendonça, a prolific actor of Brazilian television and film, is a native. Nelson Ned, the short-statured singer whose voice carried romantic ballads across the Portuguese-speaking world in the 1960s and 1970s, grew up here. Eugênio German - the first Brazilian to earn the title of international chess master - was born in Ubá. The model Evandro Soldati, who walked major runways in the 2000s and 2010s, is also from the city. For a Zona da Mata municipality of modest size, Ubá has sent an unusual number of its children into the wider cultural conversation of Brazil.