Cortiço

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Cortiço is a Portuguese term commonly used in Brazil and Portugal to describe an area of urban housing where many people live in conditions of poor hygiene and poverty. Some cortiços can be seen in big Brazilian cities such as São Paulo, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro,and Recife. Cortiços (or tenements) differ from favelas in being large houses divided into small rooms, rather than automously-built neighborhoods. People who live in cortiços are normally families in one very small room who have to share one bathroom and have no privacy.

The term was made popular by Brazilian writer Aluísio de Azevedo in 1890 with the book O Cortiço.