The first coastal settlement in Brazil, São Vicente was founded in 1532. It was the first permanent Portuguese colony in the New World. Twenty two years later the Tibiriçá Chief and Jesuit missionaries Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta founded the village of São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga 68 kilometres inland from São Vicente, on January 25, 1554. The clergymen established a mission at the Colégio de São Paulo de Piratininga, aimed at converting the Tupi–Guarani indigenous Brazilians to the Catholic faith, as well as make it easier for the Portuguese crown to rule them. Anchieta is said to have killed a native, which brings a degree of protest from Indian rights groups against his canonization by the Vatican. The Jesuits were later also often at odds with the Portuguese authorities, mainly the Marquês de Pombal, who eventually expelled them from Brazil for protecting converted natives in their missions. Located just beyond the Serra do Mar cliffs, above the port city of Santos, and close to the Tietê River, the new settlement became the natural entrance from the South East coast to the vast and fertile high plateau to the West that would eventually become the richest Brazilian state.
São Paulo officially became a city in 1711. In the 19th century, it experienced economic prosperity brought about through coffee exports shipped from the neighboring city of Santos.
After the abolition of slavery in 1888, waves of immigrants from Portugal, Italy, Spain and other European countries emigrated to São Paulo in order to "bleach the race," as Luso-Brazilian authorities feared Brazil's black population would grow far more than other groups. These Europeans were granted lands as incentives to immigrate and some worked in an indentured fashion at coffee plantations. Newcomers and their descendants ended up "making the America," as they said in Italian and Portuguese, and some of Brazil's greatest entrepreneurs have Italian, Portuguese, and German last names such as Mattarazzo, Diniz, and Mueller.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the coffee cycle had plummeted due to, among other factors, a sharp decline in international coffee prices. With the Wall Street Crash of 1929, coffee barons started losing their influence and status. The Paulistan economy looked for other alternatives such as sugar cane and the production of alcohol. With the difficulties brought about by World War II, when industrialized items had difficultly reaching Brazil, and following the national incipient trend of import-substitution, São Paulo began industrializing for domestic consumption. Brazil already showed a pattern of huge importation of most fashionable and manufactured products from Europe, which was maintained well into the late 20th century, and created huge trade deficits despite substantial coffee and sugar exports.
Local entrepreneurs then started investing in the industrial development of São Paulo, attracting new contingents of immigrants to the city, mainly Italians. In addition to Europeans, Japanese and Syrian and Lebanese immigrants arrived in large numbers in the first half of the 20th century. Along the 20th century, the booming economy of the city also attracted huge waves of migrants from the poorest regions in Brazil, such as the Northeast. São Paulo maintained a high economic growth rate through the 1920s, driven by interrelated streams of immigration, rapid industrialization, and investment. In the early 1920s the Sampaio Moreira Building reached an unprecedented 14 stories, and by the end of the decade the Martinelli Building attained more than twice that height. Growing fleets of automobiles and diesel buses allowed hordes of service workers to commute from their outlying homes to jobs in the city center.
However, due to competition with many other Brazilian cities, which sometimes offer tax advantages for companies to locate manufacturing plants there, São Paulo's main economic activities have gradually left its industrial profile in favour of the services industry in the late 20th century. The city is home to a large number of local and international banking offices, law firms, multinational companies and consumer services. Although a modern face had emerged in São Paulo's better areas by the 1930s, larger portions were basically unchanged. São Paulo had lacked any city plan before 1889, and no zoning law was passed until 1972. Indeed, well into the 20th century much of the city retained a colonial aspect, with narrow unpaved streets, shabby buildings, and a few old churches of Jesuit and Franciscan styles.
The city was bombed during the Revolution of 1924. Between 1920 and 1940 the population more than doubled, reaching 1.3 million. Although Rio de Janeiro had itself grown spectacularly during this period, São Paulo trailed it by only 460,000 inhabitants and would leapfrog ahead within two decades. During 1939–45 the engineer-mayor Francisco Prestes Maia built the multilane Avenida 9 de Julho and widened numerous other streets despite resistance from displaced residents. By 1947 the new star of São Paulo's skyline was the São Paulo State Bank building, and, starting with the Mário de Andrade Municipal Library, the city's architecture moved beyond the short period of Art Deco design. By 1950 São Paulo had grown to a metropolis of 2.2 million compared to Rio's 2.4 million, but a decade later São Paulo led with 3.7 million to Rio's 3.3 million, thus solidifying its reputation as one of the world's most dynamic urban centres. Famed architect Oscar Niemeyer was lured from Rio to design the sinuous curves of the Copan Building, and the Itália Building became its towering neighbour. The highly imaginative São Paulo Art Museum (begun in 1956 and completed in 1968) was built over the juncture of Avenida 9 de Julho and eight-lane Avenida Paulista.
In the 1960s São Paulo came to include almost half of the population of the State of São Paulo (Brazil's most populous state) and to account for about one-third of the country's total industrial employment. Because automobiles were becoming a São Paulo family staple, expressways were built along the canalized Tietê and Pinheiros rivers in 1967, and the Bandeirantes expressway provided access to the city center. Highway expansion continues to be an ongoing process because the roads running alongside the rivers are among the heaviest used in the country. However, no amount of highway construction and street widening could more than briefly alleviate the intolerable traffic congestion. Construction of a subway system was begun in the late 1960s in hopes of improving the situation, and new subway lines continue to be expanded and added and enhanced.
Despite its many woes, São Paulo remains a business hub of Latin America. Having prospered first with the coffee industry, and later with industrialization, in the early 21st century it expanded into the tertiary, or services sector. Its huge market (about 20 million people in greater São Paulo) is a magnet for multinational corporations. Thanks to events such as the Feira Bienal Internacional de Arte, and its reputation for hosting cutting-edge music concerts, it has become something of a cultural center as well. Economic growth and exportation of goods has lifted employment and wages. The murder rate has dropped by almost a quarter since its peak.
The historic center profited with the return of the city's government and the arrival of private universities, although businesses continue to move out to new boom neighborhoods such as Itaim and Berrini. São Paulo also claims to attract more visitors (mostly, but no longer exclusively, on business) than Rio de Janeiro, testimony of the intense rivalry between the two metropolises.
São Paulo is located in Southeastern Brazil, in southeastern São Paulo State, approximately halfway between Curitiba (Capital of Paraná State, previously part of São Paulo State) and Rio de Janeiro (former capital of Brazil and now capital of the State which bears the same name). The city is located on a plateau located within the Serra do Mar (Portuguese for "Sea Range"), itself a component of the vast region known as the Brazilian Highlands, with an average elevation of around 799 metres (2,621 ft) above sea level, although being at a distance of only about 70 kilometres (43 mi) from the Atlantic Ocean. This distance is covered by two highways, the Anchieta and the Imigrantes, (see "Transportation" section below) that roll down the range, leading to the port city of Santos and the beach resort of Guarujá. Rolling terrain prevails within the urbanized areas of São Paulo except in the northern area of the city, where the Serra da Cantareira Range boasts higher elevations and a sizable remnant of the Atlantic Rain Forest. The entire region is very stable tectonically, and no significant seismic activity has ever been recorded.
The Tietê River, and its tributary, the Pinheiros River, were once important sources of fresh water and leisure for São Paulo. However, heavy industrial effluents and wastewater discharges in the later 20th century caused the rivers to become heavily polluted. A substantial clean-up program for both rivers is underway, financed through a partnership between local government and international development banks such as the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. Neither river is navigable in the stretch that flows through the city, although water transportation becomes increasingly important on the Tietê river further downstream (towards South, near river Paraná), as the river is part of the River Plate basin.
There are no large natural lakes in the region, but the Billings and Guarapiranga reservoirs in the southern outskirts of the city are used for power generation, water storage, and leisure activities, such as sailing. The original flora consisted mainly of a great variety of broadleaf evergreens. Today, non-native species are common, as the mild climate and abundant rainfall permit a multitude of tropical, subtropical and temperate plants to be cultivated, with eucalyptus being especially ubiquitous.
The nonspecific term "Grande São Paulo" ("Greater São Paulo") denotes any of São Paulo's metropolitan area definitions. The legally defined Região Metropolitana de São Paulo consists of 39 municipalities in total, and a population of 19,683,975 inhabitants (as of 2010 National Census).
Because São Paulo is sprawling like Los Angeles, it has another definition for its metropolitan area. Analogous to the US's CSA (Combined Statistical Area) type definition of metropolitan area, it is the third largest city in the world with 27 million inhabitants (Complexo Metropolitano Expandido), behind Tokyo and Jakarta, which includes 2 contiguous legally defined metropolitan regions, and 3 microregions.
The city of São Paulo is divided into 31 subprefectures (subprefeituras), each in turn divided into 96 districts. Locally, districts may contain one or more neighborhoods (bairros). The subprefectures are officially grouped into nine regions (or "zones"), taking into account their geographical position and history of occupation. These regions are used only in technical and governmental agencies and are not identified by any visual communication in the city. There is also a geographic radial division established in 2007 by the mayor Gilberto Kassab. These geographical areas (historical downtown, extended downtown, north, south, east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest) are each identified with a distinct color in the buses and in the street plaques. These have no relationship with the subprefectures and districts, and, in some cases, the same district may be in two or more geographic regions.
São Paulo is the most ethnically diverse city in Brazil. At the end of the traffic of enslaved Africans in the country (1850), São Paulo started to replace the African manpower with immigrants in the coffee plantations. The pioneer in this new project was senator Nicolau Vergueiro, who brought German, Swiss and Portuguese individuals to work in his own properties. The next waves of immigrants contained Italians and Portuguese from the mid-19th century until the turn of the century. These were far more adaptable to coffee cultivation and became over time the largest immigrant communities in the state of São Paulo.
After the abolition of slavery (1888), São Paulo received increasingly large numbers of European immigrants, most of them coming from Italy, followed by Portugal and Spain. In 1897, Italians were over half of the city's population. Portuguese, Spaniards, Germans, Japanese, Jews and Christian Syrian-Lebanese also came in significant numbers. From 1908 to 1941, many Japanese immigrants arrived. In the 1960s, Chinese and Koreans started arriving. In the mid-20th century, many from the drought-stricken Northeastern Brazil started to migrate to São Paulo. Nowadays, the city has a growing community from other Latin American countries.
A French observer, travelling to São Paulo at the time, noted that there was a division of the capitalist class, by nationality Germans,French, and Italians shared the dry goods sector with Brazilians. Foodstuffs was generally the province of either Portuguese or Brazilians, except for bakery and pastry which was the domain of the French and Germans. Shoes and tinware were mostly controlled by Italians. However, the larger metallurgical plants were in the hands of the English and the Americans. Italians outnumbered Brazilians two to one in São Paulo .
Until 1920, 1,078,437 Italians entered in the State of São Paulo. Of the immigrants who arrived there between 1887 and 1902, 63.5% came from Italy. Between 1888 and 1919, 44.7% of the immigrants were Italians, 19.2% were Spaniards and 15.4% were Portuguese. In 1920, nearly 80% of São Paulo city's population was composed of immigrants and their descendants, and Italians made up over half of its male population. At that time, the Governor of São Paulo said that "if the owner of each house in São Paulo display the flag of the country of origin on the roof, from above São Paulo would look like an Italian city". In 1900, a columnist who was absent from São Paulo for 20 years wrote "then São Paulo used to be a genuine Paulista city, today it is an Italian city."
A research conducted by the University of São Paulo (USP) shows the high ethnical diversity in the city: when asked if they are "descendants of foreign immigrants", 81% of the students reported "yes". The main reported ancestries were: Italian (30.5%), Portuguese (23%), Spanish (14%), Japanese (8%), German (5.6%), Brazilian (4.3%), African (2.8%), Arab (2.4%) and Jewish (1.2%).
Since the 19th century there is a migration of people from Northeastern Brazil into São Paulo. However, this internal migration grew enormously in the 1930s and remained huge in the next decades. The concentration of land, modernization in rural areas, changes in work relationships and cycles of droughts stimulated the high migration rate. The Northeastern migrants live mainly in hazardous and unhealthy areas of the city, in cortiços, in various slums (favelas) of the metropolis, because they are cheaper housing alternatives. According to the 2000 Brazilian Census, there were 3,641,148 people from Northeastern Brazil living in São Paulo, about 20% of the city's population. According to another resource, the largest concentration of Northeastern migrants was found in the area of Sé/Brás (districts of Brás, Bom Retiro, Cambuci, Pari and Sé). In this area they composed 41% of the population.
As in all of Brazil, people of different ethnicities mix with each other, producing a multi-ethnic society. Today, people of many different ethnicities make São Paulo their home. The main groups, considering all the metropolitan area, are: 6 million people of Italian descent, 3 million people of Portuguese descent, 1.7 million people of African descent, 1 million people of Arab descent, 665,000 people of Japanese descent, 400,000 people of German descent, 120,000 people of Chinese descent, 40,000 Jews, 60,000 Bolivian immigrants, 150,000 people of Greek descent, 250,000 people of French descent and 50,000 people of Korean descent.
Racially, São Paulo (city, not the metropolitan area) is made up of 70% White, 22% Mixed-race (Brown), 4% Black, 3.9% Asian and 0.1% Amerindian.
The language spoken by the vast majority of the population is Portuguese. Due to the large influx of Italian immigrants, the Portuguese spoken in the city reflects a significant influence from the languages of the Italian peninsula, particularly from Neapolitan and Venetian.
Italian dialects are mixed with the countryside Caipira accent of São Paulo. Some linguists maintain that the São Paulo dialect of Portuguese was born in Mooca, a neighborhood settled in the early 20th century mainly by people from Naples, Southern Italy.
The Italian influence in the accent of the inhabitants of São Paulo is more evident in the traditional Italian neighborhoods such as Bexiga, Mooca, Brás and Barra Funda. The Italianism came from the contact of Italian with the Portuguese language and since it is an old influence, it was assimilated or disappeared in the spoken language of the city. In 2009, a councilman from São Paulo, Juscelino Gadelha, presented a project designed to transform Mooca's accent on "intangible property" of the city of São Paulo and then protected by law. If approved, the accent of people from Mooca will be preserved on recordings and transcripts. The local accent with Italian influences became notorious through the songs of Adoniran Barbosa, a Brazilian samba singer born to Italian parents who used to sing using the local accent.
Other languages spoken in the city are mainly among the Asian community: Liberdade neighborhood is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan. Although today most Japanese Brazilians can speak only Portuguese, some of them are still fluent in Japanese. Some people of Chinese and Korean descent are still able to speak their ancestral languages. However, most of the Brazilian-born generations only speak Portuguese.
São Paulo is the 10th richest city in the world, and is expected to be the 6th richest in 2025. According to data of IBGE, its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2006 was R$ 282,852,338,000, equivalent to approximately 12.26% of the Brazilian GDP and 36% of all production of goods and services of the State of São Paulo. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers annual economic growth of the city is 4.2%.
The biggest financial center in Brazil, São Paulo's economy is going through a deep transformation. Once a city with a strong industrial character, São Paulo's economy has become increasingly based on the tertiary sector, focusing on services and businesses for the country. The city is also unique among Brazilian cities for its large number of foreign corporations. Many analysts point to São Paulo as an important global city, even though this categorization can be criticised considering its serious problems of social exclusion and spacial segregation. Despite being the most important financial centre of the country, São Paulo also presents a high degree of informality in its economy.
São Paulo has the largest concentration of German businesses worldwide and also considered the largest Swedish industrial hub alongside Gothenburg.
In 2005, the city of São Paulo collected R$ 90 billion in taxes, and the city budget was R$ 15 billion. The city has 1,500 bank branches. There are 70 shopping malls. 63% of all the international companies with business in Brazil have their head offices in São Paulo. The São Paulo Stock Exchange (BM&F Bovespa) is Brazil's official stock and bonds exchange. The BM&F Bovespa is the largest stock exchange in Latin America where about R$ 6 billion (US$ 3.5 billion) are traded every day. The per capita income for the city was R$ 32,493 (2008).
According to Mercer's 2011 city rankings of cost of living for expatriate employees, São Paulo is now among the ten most expensive cities in the world, ranking in 10th place in 2011, up from the 21st position in 2010, and ahead of London, Paris, Milan, and New York City.
The city of São Paulo is home to several important Research and Development structures in Latin America, and has been attracting a growing number of companies due to the presence of several regionally renowned universities. The system of science, technology and innovation of São Paulo is leveraged by the allocation of funds from the state government, mainly carried out by means of the Foundation to Research Support in the State of São Paulo (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo – Fapesp), one of the main agencies of promotion of the scientific and technological research of the country.
The luxury market in São Paulo is concentrated in the called 'luxury quadrilateral' whose vertices are the Cidade Jardim Mall, the area of Oscar Freire Street, the Iguatemi São Paulo Mall and the department store Daslu and JK Iguatemi Mall, scheduled to open in March 2012, in the neighborhood Vila Olímpia.
Sales of luxury goods in Brazil amounted to 8.9 billion dollars in 2010, according to GfK Brazil, of which 70% of luxury goods are sold in São Paulo City and 95% of sales in the city are represented by 'luxury quadrilateral'. The Cidade Jardim mall, is a high-end mall, in Jardim Panorama, Morumbi district, with restaurants, cinemas, and boutiques, including Carolina Herrera, Chanel, Ermenegildo Zegna, Giorgio Armani, Hermès, Longchamp, Montblanc, Rolex, Salvatore Ferragamo, Tiffany & Co., Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Emilio Pucci, Alexandre de Paris, Carlos Miele, H.Stern and Daslu. The Italian Prada, Fendi, Dior, Gucci, Cartier, Canali, Balmain, Dolce & Gabbana, Tod's, the Argentinean Etiqueta Negra and the English Issa London will be installed at the mall in 2011 and in 2012. Louis Vuitton will have a new store, a global store with 1,400 square metres (15,000 sq ft). According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, the store will be one of six major brand stores.
The Iguatemi Faria Lima, in Faria Lima Avenue, is the Brazil's oldest mall, opened in 1966. It is considered the 11th most expensive shopping area in the world, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Among the more than 30 international luxury brands are Burberry, Emporio Armani, Hugo Boss, Chanel, Bang & Olufsen, Bvlgari, Dolce & Gabbana, Diane von Fürstenberg, Gucci, Missoni, Christian Louboutin, Salvatore Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton, Ermenegildo Zegna, Max Mara, Baccarat, Swatch, Tiffany & Co., Swarovski, Carlos Miele and H.Stern. The Oscar de la Renta, Tod's and TopShop will be installed at the mall in 2011 and 2012.
In Vila Olímpia neighborhood, is the Villa Daslu departament store. With 20 thousand square meters sells about 330 national and international luxury brands, as Valentino, Ermenegildo Zegna, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Blumarine, Oscar de la Renta, Givenchy, Balmain, Manolo Blahnik, Chloé, Missoni, Moschino, Alexander McQueen, Karl Lagerfeld, BCBG Max Azria, DKNY, Paul Smith, Louis Vuitton, Tom Ford, Goyard, Sergio Rossi and Salvatore Ferragamo. In the surrounding area, is being built a future high-end mall JK Iguatemi, which will have brands such as Versace, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Chanel, Ermenegildo Zegna, Longchamp, Tod's, Yves Saint Laurent, TopShop/TopMan, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Lanvin, Miu Miu, Diane von Fürstenberg, Goyard, Polo Ralph Lauren, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Emporio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana and Daslu.
The Jardins neighborhood, is the most sophisticated area of the city. In this neighborhood is located the best restaurants and hotels of the São Paulo City.
In Jardins are Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bentley, BMW, Bugatti, Maserati, Lamborghini, Jaguar, Volvo, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Pagani, Land Rover and Audi dealerships; hotels as Tivoli, Porto Bay, Fasano, Emiliano, Renaissance and Unique; and one of the best restaurants in the world as D.O.M. and Fasano. In the Oscar Freire street and nearby streets as Haddock Lobo and Bela Cintra are the best brands of the Brazil and the world, include Bang & Olufsen, Bvlgari, Calvin Klein, Cartier, Dior, Emporio Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna, Giorgio Armani, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Marina Rinaldi, Max Mara, Montblanc, Roberto Cavalli, Salvatore Ferragamo, Tommy Hilfiger, Versace, Carlos Miele, H.Stern and Daslu.
Outside the 'luxury quadrilateral', is the Brooklin CBD. In this neighborhood are some of the city's best hotels as the Hilton Hotel, Sheraton Hotels and Hyatt, as other exclusive mall, the Morumbi Shopping. Other regions of the city also have luxury trade as Jardim Anália Franco (East Zone), Higienópolis (Central Zone), Alto de Santana (North Zone), Alto de Pinheiros (West Zone), Moema/Vila Nova Conceição (South Zone) and Alphaville (Barueri municipality, Greater São Paulo).
Sao Paulo has a history of actions, projects and plans related to urban planning and urban planning that can be traced to the government of Antonio da Silva Prado, Baron Duprat, Washington and completed by Luis Francisco Prestes Maia. However, in general, the city was formed during the twentieth century, going from village to metropolis, through a series of informal processes and irregular urban sprawl. Thus, differs considerably from Sao Paulo Brazilian cities like Belo Horizonte and Goiânia, whose initial expansion followed determinations by a plan and a unique urban project, or a city like Brasília, whose master plan had been fully designed prior to construction of the city.
Moreover, the succession of peripheral settlements and the processes of rehabilitation and reconstruction of tissues already present, common in the city throughout its evolution, was possibly accompanied by urban plans that tried to sort the second planning guidelines informal logic of the constitution itself city. If the first interventions Prado punctual and Theodore had such plans sought, either sectorally integrated and sometimes isolated, setting standards to be followed in the production of new urban spaces and regulation of the above.
The historical effectiveness of such plans to comply with what they apparently were proposed, however, has been attributed by some planners and historians as diverse as questionable. On the other hand, some of these same scholars argue that such plans were produced exclusively for the benefit of the wealthier strata of the population while the working classes would be relegated to the traditional informal processes. In Sao Paulo until the mid-1950s, the plans submitted to the city even had a character Haussmann, or were based on the idea of "demolish and rebuild." May be cited as the plans submitted by former Mayor Prestes Maia Sao Paulo for the roads (known as the Avenues Plan) or by Saturnino de Brito for the Tietê River.
In 1968 the Urban Development Plan is proposed that would unfold in the Basic Plan for Integrated Development of São Paulo, developed during the administration of Figueiredo Ferraz. The main result has been what has become known as zoning laws and lasted until 2004 when he was replaced by current Master Plan. That zoning, adopted in 1972, we noted a clear protection calls Z1 (definition of areas whose use was residential and was designed exclusively for the elite of the city) and a certain vagueness of most of the city, classified as Z3 (loosely regulated as "mixed zone" but without clearer definitions about their characteristics). Thus, such zoning encouraged the growth of suburbs equipped for building low feedback processes coupled with speculation while valued regions in which it is allowed to build tall buildings.
São Paulo Fashion Week, established in 1996 under the name Morumbi Fashion Brasil, is the largest and most important fashion event in Latin America.
Brazil first entered the international fashion circuit with the increasing reputation of famous Brazilian top models such as Isabeli Fontana, Adriana Lima, Gisele Bündchen, Alessandra Ambrosio, Fernanda Tavares, Ana Beatriz Barros, Izabel Goulart, Brenda Costa, Ana Hickmann, and Evandro Soldati, and the "discovery" of some fresh talents such as Alexandre Herchcovitch by some international fashion magazines.
The first São Paulo Gay Pride Parade took place in 1997, making São Paulo's version quite recent in comparison to those in New York, San Francisco and Sydney which originated in the 1970s. The event is a tourist draw for the city, attracting about 1.5 million people to Paulista Avenue in 2006. It is opened by the city's mayor, running along the avenue, accompanied by several Trio Elétricos. The last parade, held on June 6, 2010, attracted about 3 million people according to official numbers, given by the Polícia Militar. The Parade is an annual event, taking place in June, which aims to increase the visibility and social awareness of the community, as well as agitating against discrimination and in favor of positive legislation for homosexuals, bisexuals, transvestites and transsexuals. Since its 7th year, the Parade has become associated with a wider month long cultural program, lasting at least a month.
The Electronic Language International Festival is a non-profit cultural organization, whose purpose is to disseminate and to develop arts, technologies and scientific research, by means of exhibitions, debates, lectures, and courses. The festival promotes a yearly meeting in Brazil, in the city of São Paulo.
The Carnival of São Paulo is a traditional celebration carnival held every year in São Paulo. The parade of samba schools in São Paulo is the Anhembi Sambadrome, designed by renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer, who also designed the Sambadrome of the sambodrome in Rio de Janeiro. The Special Group parade of samba schools of São Paulo happens on Friday and Saturday of carnival week, schools that participated in the carnival in 2012.
São Paulo is the largest health care hub in Latin America. Among its best hospitals are the Albert Einstein Israelites Hospital, ranked as the best in Latin America and the Hospital das Clínicas, the largest in the region. In the city In terms of public health facilities, the city is home to institutions from all the three levels of government, federal, state and municipal. The private health care sector is also very large, and most of the best hospitals in Brazil are located in the city. As of September 2009, the city of São Paulo had:
Public health facilities in charge of the municipal government are spread all over the city's territory, with a grand total of 770 basic health care units (UBS), ambulatory and emergency clinics, and 17 hospitals. The Municipal Secretary of Health has 59,000 employees, among them more than 8,000 physicians and 12,000 nurses. A population estimated in more than 6,000,000 citizens uses these facilities, which provide drugs at no cost, and manages an extensive family health program (PSF – Programa de Saúde da Família).
The Rede São Paulo Saudável (Healthy São Paulo Network) is a satellite-based digital TV corporate channel, developed by the Municipal Health Secretary of São Paulo, with the goal of bringing programs focused on health promotion and health education, which may be watched by citizens seeking health care in its units in the city. The network consists of two complete TV studios, and a system for transmission of closed digital video in high definition via satellite, with about 1,400 points of reception in all health care units of the municipality of São Paulo.
Adoniran Barbosa was a famous samba singer and composer who became successful during São Paulo's radio era. Born in 1912 in the town of Valinhos, Barbosa was known as the composer to the masses, particularly the Italian immigrants living in the quarters of Bela Vista, also known as "Bexiga" and Brás, as well as those who lived in the city's many cortiços or tenements. The topics of his songs are drawn from the life of urban workers, the unemployed and those who live on the edge. His first big hit was "Saudosa Maloca" ("Shanty of Fond Memories" – 1951), wherein three homeless friends recall with nostalgia their improvised shanty home, which was torn down by the landowner to make room for a building. In his Trem das Onze ("The 11 pm Train") 1964 record, which has been ranked one of the five best samba songs ever, the protagonist explains to his lover that he cannot stay any longer because he has to catch the last train to the Jaçanã suburb, for his mother will not sleep before he arrives. An old-school samba band called Demônios da Garoa still plays his songs in the traditional Bar Brahma venue on São João Avenue downtown. Another important musician with a similar style is Paulo Vanzoline. Vanzoline is a PhD in Biology and a part-time professional musician. He composed a song depicting a love murder scene in São Paulo called "Ronda".
In the late 1960s, a psychedelic rock band called Os Mutantes led the way in the national avant garde music scene. Their success is sometimes related to that of other tropicalia musicians, but they also had a musical style and ideas of their own. They were regarded as very paulistanos in their behaviour and clothing. Os Mutantes released five albums together before lead singer Rita Lee departed in 1972 to form another group called Tutti-Frutti. Although almost exclusively known in Brazil at that time, Os Mutantes became quite successful abroad after the 1990s (a legend has it that a Brazilian young woman in an exchange programme in California forgot a Mutantes' vinyl record at her host home, and that helped make the band popular in that U.S. state). In 2000, Tecnicolor, an album recorded in the early 1970s in English by the band, was released with artwork designed by Sean Lennon.
After the two oil price shocks in the 1970s, the country suffered from an economic recession during the 1980s, a phenomenon that was named the lost decade. The very repressive military government of the day did not help in any way the social situation. At the end of the military rule in the early 1980s, a band called Ultrage a Rigor (Elegant Intruder) emerged in the city. They played a simple and irreverent style of rock. The lyrics depicted the changes in society and culture that not only São Paulo but Brazilian society as a whole were experiencing at the time. A late punk and garage scene became strong in the 1980s, perhaps associated with the gloomy scenario of unemployment and few actual perspectives from the viewpoint of the youth. All of thriving musicians and artists waiting for their moment to come. Examples of bands originating from this movement include Ira!, Titãs, Ratos de Porão and Inocentes. In the 1990s, drum & bass became another musical movement in São Paulo, with artists such as DJ Marky, DJ Patife, XRS, Drumagick, and Fernanda Porto. Many heavy metal bands also originated in São Paulo, such as Angra, Torture Squad, Korzus and Dr. Sin. Many "alternative" cultures of São Paulo mingle at a small shopping mall dubbed Galeria do Rock (English: "Rock Gallery")on 24 de Maio Street, which includes shops which cater to a broad range of alternative niches. Famous alternative band Cansei de Ser Sexy, or CSS (Portuguese for "tired of being sexy") also came from São Paulo.
Classical music is also refined and renowned in the city. Many of the most important classical Brazilian composers who are still alive, like Amaral Vieira, Osvaldo Lacerda and Edson Zampronha, were born in and live in São Paulo. Local baritone Paulo Szot has won international acclaim and a Tony Award nomination for his performance in a 2008 revival of South Pacific. The São Paulo State Symphony is one of the outstanding orchestras in Latin America and in the world.
São Paulo's most important opera houses are: Sao Paulo Municipal Theater, Theatro São Pedro and Sala São Paulo, the latter being the headquarters of OSESP. The city also counts with several music halls. The main ones are: Credicard Hall, HSBC Music Hall, Olympia, Via Funchal, Villa Country, Carioca Club, Kezebre Rock Bar, Arena Anhembi and Espaco das Américas. Lots of bars and cultural centers also have stages for live performances, the soccer stadiums and the Sambadrome host musical presentations as well.
São Paulo was home to the first Jesuit missionaries in Brazil, in the early 16th century. They wrote reports to the Portuguese crown about the newly found land, the native peoples and composed pieces of poetry and music for the catechism. Among them were priests such as Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta, living in or near the colony then called Piratininga. They also helped to register the Old Tupi language, lexicon and its grammar.
In 1922, the Brazilian Modernist Movement, launched in São Paulo, also began to achieve a similar cultural independence through different means. Brazil had gone through the same stages of development as the rest of Latin America, but its political and cultural independence came more gradually. The first emperor of Brazil, Pedro I, was a legitimate member of the royal Portuguese dynasty. Although he declared Brazil's independence from Portugal in 1822, the country remained under imperial rule and the dominance of the court in Rio de Janeiro until 1889.
With Brazil thus tied to Portuguese culture, Brazilian writers only little by little assumed responsibility for giving expression to their own landscape and ethnic mix of peoples. The presence of large numbers of former slaves added a distinctive African character to the culture. And subsequent infusions of immigrants of non-Portuguese origin, from different parts of Europe, helped the new nation to find its own voice and to use it. Mário de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade are the prototypical modernists. With the urban poems of "Paulicéia Desvairada" and "Carefree Paulistan land" (1922), Mário de Andrade established the movement in Brazil. His rhapsodic novel Macunaíma (1928), with its abundance of Brazilian folklore, represents the apex of modernism's nationalist prose through its creation of an offbeat native national hero. Oswald de Andrade's experimental poetry, avant-garde prose, particularly the novel Serafim Ponte Grande (1933), and provocative manifestos exemplify the movement's break with tradition. Modernist artists and writers chose the Municipal Theatre of São Paulo to launch their Modernist manifesto. The site happened to be a bastion of European culture with Opera and classical music presentations brought from Germany, France, Austria, and Italy. It was significant for them to choose such house as their starting point because the high society which frequented it denied its Brazilian roots by speaking languages such as French only in the opera house. Moreover, it behaved as if the rest of Brazil, and Brazilian culture itself, did not matter or did not exist. Both these authors were influential writers from the Modernist school: Mário de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade.
Many historians believe that the first theatre performance in Brazil was held in São Paulo. The Spanish Jesuit missionary José de Anchieta (1534–1597) wrote short plays that were performed and watched by the Tupi–Guarani natives. After that, however, São Paulo became a province and cultural activities lost momentum. It was only in the beginning of the 20th century that, thanks to the coffee cycle and the wealth it brought, major European ethnic groups started making presentations in some of the state's countryside cities. Theatres such as Pedro II, in Ribeirão Preto, welcomed groups that had already performed in Manaus, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. The most important period for the art in São Paulo took place during the avant-garde time. It was in São Paulo that a professional company, Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia, or TBC (Brazilian Theater of Comedy) made its first presentation. During the 60s, major theater productions in São Paulo and Brazil were presented by two groups. Teatro de Arena began with a group of students from Escola de Arte Dramática (Drama Art School), founded by Alfredo Mesquita, in 1948. In 1958, the group excelled with the play "Eles não usam black tie," a masterpiece by Gianfrancesco Guarnieri that, for the first time in the history of the Brazilian drama, had labor workers as protagonists.
After the military coup of 1964, which was supported by the US, theater plays started focusing on the Brazilian history (Zumbi, Tiradentes). Teatro de Arena was an embattled stage for the democratic resistance during the military dictatorship period, marked by its censorship. Teatro Oficina also played an important role. It was there that the Tropicalist movement began. There was a number of plays that represented historic moments, among which "O Rei da Vela", "Galileu Galilei" (1968), "Na Sela das Cidades" (1969) and "Gracias Señor" (1972). Today, all kinds of plays are performed at São Paulo's dozens of theatres, going from classical music, ballet to avant-garde plays and Broadway musicals.
Hospedaria do Imigrante (Immigrant's Hostel) was built in 1886 and opened in 1887, when the first immigrants were housed there. The Immigrant's Hostel was built in Brás to welcome the immigrants who arrived in Brazil through the Port of Santos, quarantining those who were sick and helping new arrivals to find work in coffee plantations in Western, Northern, and Southwestern São Paulo State and Northern Paraná State. From 1882 to 1978, 2.5 million immigrants of more than 60 nationalities and ethnicities were guests there, all of them duly registered in the museum's books and lists. The hostel used to serve approximately 3,000 people on average, but under special circumstances, this number reached 8,000. The hostel received the last immigrants in 1978.
In 1998 the Hostel became a museum, and it preserves the documentation, memory and objects of the immigrants that came to Brazil in search of hope and wealth. Located in one of the few centenarian buildings left in the city of São Paulo, the museum occupies part of the former Hostel. Aside from bringing the immigrants' history to the public, the museum also restores wooden train wagons from the former São Paulo Railway. There are two restored wagons in the museum. One of them dates from 1914, and another one a second class passenger car, dates from 1931. The Memorial do Imigrante pays homage to the ancestors of millions of Brazilians who arrived through the port of Santos and had São Paulo as a gateway to Brazil. It is possible to find in the museum the names of all immigrants who were hosted there from 1888 to 1978.
The museum was founded by the journalist Assis Chateaubriand and by Pietro Maria Bardi. Its current headquarters, opened in 1968, were designed by the architect Lina Bo Bardi. Two enormous colonnades support the 9,2 thousand ton building, forming a 74-meter free space. MASP has one of Latin America's most important collections of European art, including works of art by distinguished artists such as Degas, Renoir, Modigliani and Bonnard, among others.
The headquarters of the State Government has an important collection of works of art by Brazilian artists, such as Portinari, Aldo Bonadei, Djanira, Almeida Júnior, Victor Brecheret, Ernesto de Fiori and Aleijadinho. Additionally, it also gathers colonial furniture, leather and silver artefacts, and European tapestry. In eclectic style, its walls are covered with panels describing the history of São Paulo.
Opened in May 1990, the main aim of Museu da Imagem e do Som (Image and Sound Museum) is to keep and preserve manifestations in the music, cinema, photography, and graphical arts areas, as well as any other manifestation related to the Brazilian contemporary life. MIS has a collection of more than 200,000 images, distributed in thematic collections of diverse content. It has more than 1,600 fiction videotapes, documentaries and music, and 12,750 titles recorded in Super 8 and 16 mm. Additionally, MIS organizes concerts, cinema and video festivals, and photography and graphical arts exhibitions.
São Paulo is a major cultural centre. The city has an ethnically diverse metropolitan area, with heavy Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, among other influences. The city is known for its varied and sophisticated cuisine, ranging from Chinese to French, from fast food chains to five star restaurants. There are approximately 62 different types of cuisines in São Paulo, and more than 12,000 restaurants. Other venues such as bars, pubs, lounges and discos cater to a variety of music tastes.
São Paulo is home to the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II in the first half of the 20th century and "Pinacoteca do Estado" art museums, a symphonic orchestra (São Paulo State Symphony (OSESP – based in the Sala São Paulo theatre in the gorgeous Julio Prestes train station)), and a Formula One Grand Prix racing circuit (Interlagos).
As in the rest of Brazil, Association football is by far the most popular sport in the city. The major teams in São Paulo are known as "The Iron Trio" ("Trio de Ferro"): Corinthians, Palmeiras and São Paulo FC. There are three other small clubs in the city, Portuguesa, Juventus and Nacional.
São Paulo is one of the host cities of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, for which Brazil is the host nation. The opening of 2014 FIFA World Cup, is under negotiation to be held in the Corinthians stadium, called Arena Itaquera, which is being built.
The Paulo Machado de Carvalho Stadium, or "Pacaembu", not belong to any team from São Paulo because that stadium belongs to the Government. It has the capacity to 40,199 people, with a record 71,280 people - official record - in a game with the command of the São Paulo FC.
The Formula One Brazilian Grand Prix (Portuguese: Grande Prêmio do Brasil) is held at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in Interlagos, a neighborhood of São Paulo. The race at Interlagos has been held continuously since 1990. Since 1973, the first year Formula One Grand Prix had been held in Brazil, 4 Brazilians have won the Grand Prix in São Paulo: Emerson Fittipaldi (1973 and 1974), José Carlos Pace (1975), Ayrton Senna (1991 and 1993) and Felipe Massa (2006 and 2008).
In 2007, new local railway station Autódromo of the Line C (Line 9) of CPTM, was constructed near the circuit to improve access.
São Paulo profits the most in the year during the F1 Brazilian Grand Prix due to boosts in tourism, commerce and nightlife.
The 2010 São Paulo Indy 300 was the first race of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season. This 190.2-mile (306.1 km) race took place on March 14, on the 2.536-mile (4.081 km) temporary street circuit in São Paulo, Brazil. The race was telecasted by Versus.
There is seven IndyCar drivers from Brazil competing in the series, including Ana Beatriz, Hélio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Raphael Matos, Vitor Meira, Mario Moraes and Mario Romancini. São Paulo is the hometown of Beatriz, Castroneves, Moraes and Romancini.
São Paulo grew quickly from the 1940s to the 1980s and many roads and buildings were built without major planning. As a result, heavy traffic is common on the city's main avenues, and traffic jams are relatively common on its largest highways. The main means of commuting into the city is by car and by bus. In March 2011, there are more 7 million vehicles registered. An effective way of avoiding heavy vehicles traffic in the city, such as buses and trucks that crossed the city for other destinations, was planned by ex-governor Mário Covas as a road ring that circles the city, called Rodoanel Mario Covas, and is being built by DERSA.
The two major São Paulo train stations are Luz and Julio Prestes in the Luz/Campos Eliseos region. Luz is the seat of the Santos-Jundiaí line which historically transported international immigrants from the Santos port to São Paulo and the coffee plantation lands in the Western region of Campinas. Julio Prestes connected the SW São Paulo State and Northern Paraná State to São Paulo and products were transferred to Luz Station from which they headed to the Atlantic ocean and overseas. Julio Prestes ceased from transporting passengers through the Sorocabana or FEPASA lines and now only has limited suburban service. Due to its acoustics and the beauty of its interior, surrounded by Greek revival columns, part of the rebuilt station was transformed into the São Paulo Hall, or Sala São Paulo, home of the internationally, known São Paulo Orchestra.
Luz Station, which was built in Britain and assembled in Brazil, has an underground station and is still very active with east and westbound suburban trains that link São Paulo to the Greater São Paulo region to the East and the Campinas Metropolitan region in Jundiaí in the western part of the State. Besides housing the interactive Museu da Língua Portuguesa (Portuguese Language Museum), Luz Station is surrounded by important cultural institutions such as the Pinacoteca do Estado, The Museu de Arte Sacra on Tiradentes Avenue and Jardim da Luz, among others.
Although poorly maintained by heavy rail services, there is an infrastructure project to build a high-speed railway service linking Brazil's two largest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The trains would go as fast as 280 kilometres per hour (170 mph) (the trip would last about 1 hour and 30 minutes). This specific project is still waiting an official announcement by the Brazilian government, who is trying to obtain international financing through a public-private partnership.
Another important project is the "Expresso Bandeirantes," which is a medium-speed rail service (about 160 km/h) from São Paulo to Campinas, which would reduce the journey time from the current one hour and a half by car to about 50 minutes by train, linking the towns of São Paulo, Jundiaí, Campinas Airport, and Campinas city center. This service is also going to be connected to the railway service between São Paulo city center and Guarulhos Airport. Major works on an express railway service between São Paulo city center and Guarulhos International Airport were announced by the São Paulo state government in 2007, which will be a milestone in the revitalisation and improvement of the Brazilian passenger railway services.
São Paulo has two main airports. The São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport (IATA: GRU) for the international flights and the Congonhas-São Paulo Airport (IATA: CGH) for domestic and regional flights. Another airport, the Campo de Marte Airport, serves light aircraft and helicopters. The three airports together moved 42,617,779 passengers in 2010, making São Paulo on of the top 30 busiest in the world, by number of air passenger movements. The region of Greater São Paulo is also served by São José dos Campos Airport and Viracopos-Campinas International Airport.
Congonhas Airport operates flights mainly to Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasília. After the upgrade work by Infraero has been completed, passengers now enjoy new boarding lounges, located on the mezzanine level, accessed by escalators. Besides this, eight boarding bridges were installed to provide more comfort to passengers by eliminating the need to walk in the open to their flights.
The terminal area was expanded from 37.3 thousand to over 51 thousand square meters. This expansion did not seek to raise capacity, which was already saturated, but only to satisfy current demand. Congonhas Airport, built in the 1930s, was designed to handle 6 million passengers a year and was operating with 12 million a year. The ample new boarding area, separated from the main concourse, adds greatly to passenger comfort.
Campo de Marte is located in Santana district, the northern zone of São Paulo. The airport handles small aircraft, particularly private craft belonging to flying clubs and air taxi firms. Opened in 1935, Campo de Marte today is the base for the largest helicopter fleet in Brazil. It has no scheduled airlines, but its terminal is equipped with a snack bar, restaurant and bank branch. This airport also is the home base of the State Civil Police Air Tactical Unit, the State Military Police Radio Patrol Unit and the São Paulo Flying Club.
A city with possibly the world's highest helicopter ownership rate. Largely using this airport, an elite wealthy class takes advantage of some one hundred remote helipads and heliports to conveniently bypass heavy road traffic. Campo de Marte also hosts the Ventura Goodyear Blimp.
The Guarulhos International, also known to São Paulo dwellers as "Cumbica" is 25 km (16 mi) north-east of the city center, in the neighbouring city of Guarulhos. Every day nearly 100 thousand people pass through the airport, which connects Brazil to 28 countries around the world. There are 370 companies established there generating 53 thousand employments. With capacity to serve 15 million passengers a year, in two terminals, the airport currently handles 12 million users.
Construction of a third passenger terminal is pending, to raise yearly capacity to 29 million passengers. The project, in the tendering phase, is part of the airport’s master plan and will get under way shortly. São Paulo International Airport is also one of the main air cargo hubs in Brazil. The roughly 100 flights a day carry everything from fruits grown in the São Francisco Valley in the Northeast to the most sophisticated medications created by science in the Southeast. The airport's cargo terminal is South America's largest and stands behind only Mexico City's in all of Latin America. In 2003, over 75 thousand metric tons of freight passed through the terminal.
São Paulo has no tram lines, although trams used to be common in the first half of the 20th century. São Paulo's underground train system is considered modern, safe and clean and, although it still has some problems with overcrowding, it was considered one of the best subway systems, as certified by the NBR ISO 9001. It has four lines (a fifth, the Yellow line, is under construction) and links to the metropolitan train network, the CPTM. The São Paulo Metro last year reached the mark of 11.5 million passengers every mile of line. The number is 15% higher than in 2008, when 10 million users were taken per mile. It is the largest concentration of people in a single transport system in the world, according to the company.
Also in 2008, the Moscow metro, in Russia, moved 8.6 million people for every mile of track. The Shanghai, China, took 7 million, according to the Community of Metros (Comet, English acronym), an organization that brings together representatives of the 12 largest metro systems in the world. Data from last year have not been released by Comet.
Every day last year, 2.56 million people passed through the turnstiles of the subway capital, on average. If taken into account transshipments, these passengers have about 3.5 million trips per day, according to balance sheet contained in the "Management Report 2010" released yesterday with the company's balance sheet. The number of entries in the stations was 6.8% higher than recorded in 2009.
While the total number of passengers has increased the satisfaction of those who use the system decreased. The survey "The Metro according to its user: a service evaluation" of last year showed that 60% of respondents rated the means of transport as "very good" and "good." In 2009, the notes were 67% positive. The survey is conducted since 1974.
São Paulo Tietê Bus Terminal is the second largest bus terminal in the world. It serves localities in all the States of Brazil, with the exception of Amazonas, Roraima and Amapá. There are routes to 1,010 cities in five countries (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay). It offers a special line to the Congonhas and Guarulhos airports, and a ride sharing automobile service to Santos.
The Palmeiras-Barra Funda Intermodal Terminal is much smaller and is connected to the Palmeiras-Barra Funda metro and Palmeiras-Barra Funda CPTM stations. It serves the southwestern cities of Sorocaba, Itapetininga, Itu, Botucatu, Bauru, Marília, Jaú, Avaré, Piraju, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, Ipaussu, Chavantes, and Ourinhos (on the border with Paraná State). It also serves São José do Rio Preto, Araçatuba and other small towns located on the northwest of São Paulo State.
For buses to São Paulo coast, travelers need to get off at the Jabaquara metro station, which is the final southbound stop on Line 1 (Blue) of the São Paulo Metro. The Litoral bus terminal serves Praia Grande, Santos and São Vicente on the South Shore and Mongaguá, Bertioga, and Guarujá on the North Shore. Buses to North Shore cities such as Maresia, Riviera de São Lourenço, Caraguatatuba, Ubatuba, and Paraty, in Rio de Janeiro State must be taken at the Tietê Bus Terminal, at Portuguesa-Tietê metro station on Line 1 (Blue).
Crime in São Paulo was a constant issue. For two decades, São Paulo's murder rate was consistently higher than the average for Brazil. The murder rate in São Paulo fell below the average rate for Brazil in 2004. The city made strides in gun control, and the local police raised the homicide solving rate from 8 percent to 70 percent from the 1990s to 2008.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, São Paulo has been a major economic center in Latin America. With the arrival of the two World Wars and the Great Depression, coffee exports (from other regions of the state) to the United States and Europe were critically affected, leading wealthy coffee farmers to invest in industrial activities which eventually turned São Paulo into Brazil's largest industrial hub. The new job positions thereof contributed to attracting a significant number of immigrants from Europe and Asia and migrants from within the country, especially the northeastern states. From a population of merely 32,000 inhabitants in 1880, São Paulo increased its population to approximately 250,000 in 1900, 1,800,000 in 1940, 4,750,000 in 1960 and 8,500,000 in 1980. The effects of this population boom have been:
In 2007 the city of São Paulo conducted a survey about the quality of life of its inhabitants to help the government in the social politics of the city. The indicator used was the HDI – the same used by the UN for qualifying the development of the countries in the world.
It was noted in this survey that the neighborhoods around or in the geographical center of the city tend to be more developed than those located in the fringes. In 2000, top neighborhoods possessed human development indexes equal to or greater than those of Scandinavian countries, while neighborhoods in the lower range were in line with, for example, North Africa.