Santos (São Paulo)

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Santos

Flag

Seal

Motto: Patriam Charitatem et Libertatem Docui
(Latin: To the homeland I taught charity and liberty)

Location in the state of São Paulo and Brazil

Coordinates: 23°58′S 46°20′W / -23.967, -46.333

Settled

Government

- Mayor

João Paulo Tavares Papa (PMDB)

Area

- City

280.3 km² (108.2 sq mi)

- Metro

2,373 km² (916.2 sq mi)

Elevation

2 m (7 ft)

Population (2006)^[1]

- City

418,375

- Density

1,494/km² (3,866/sq mi)

- Metro

1,476,820

- Metro Density

622.3/km² (1,611.9/sq mi)

Time zone

UTC-3 (UTC-3)

- Summer (DST)

UTC-2 (UTC-2)

Website: Prefeitura Municipal de Santos

This article is about the Brazilian city. For other uses of "Santos", see Santos (disambiguation).

View of Santos

Santos (pronunciation (help·info)) is a municipality in the São Paulo state of Brazil, founded in 1546 by the Portuguese nobleman Brás Cubas. It is partially located on the island of São Vicente which harbors both the city of Santos and the city of São Vicente, and partially on the mainland. It is the main city in the metropolitan region of Baixada Santista. As of 2006, its population was estimated at 418,375 (1,476,820 metro area). Santos has the biggest seaport in Latin America, which traded over 72 million tons in 2006; is a significant tourist centre; has large industrial complexes and shipping centres, which handle a large portion of the world's coffee exports; as well as a number of other Brazilian exports including steel, oil, cars, oranges, bananas and cotton. The city also displays the Coffee Museum, where, once, coffee prices were negotiated; and a football memorial, dedicated to the city's greatest players, amongst which is Pelé. Its beach's garden, 5.335 km length, figures in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest beach front garden. Santos is home for the famous football club Santos FC, where Pelé has played.

The exportation of coffee from the Port of Santos gave rise to and greatly increased the modernity of the city. A charasteritic found that adorns the landscape of the port city are the canals with over a hundred years of antiquity. In 1899, Santos was the point of entry for the bubonic plague into Brazil.^[2] In 1924, it became the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santos.

In October 2006, light crude oil was discovered off the coast in the Santos basin.^[3]

Santos is about 79 km (49 mi) from the metropolis São Paulo, capital of the state São Paulo.