| City of Cianorte | |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s): Capital of the National Clothing | |
| Country | Brazil |
| Region | South |
| State | Paraná |
| Founded | July 26, 1955 |
| Area | |
| • Total | 811.7 km2 (313.4 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 490 m (1,608 ft) |
| Population (2009) | |
| • Total | 68,629 |
| • Density | 79.4/km2 (205.6/sq mi) |
| Time zone | UTC-3 |
| HDI (2000) | 0.818 – high |
| Website | Ciantore, Paraná |
Cianorte is a city in northwest Paraná, Brazil, with a population of 68,629, as measured by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics in 2009.
Contents |
The city was planned and founded by the Companhia Melhoramentos Norte do Paraná (Company for the Improvement of the North of Paraná), a British company for which it was also named. In the beginning of the 20th century the region was dominated by a subtropical forest and totally wild, except for the Road of Peabiru, used by the Portuguese to connect the Guaira region, further west, to the coast. That road was there since the 17th century, but reports registered that the first contact with the natives of the region, the Xetas, was in the 1930s. The Xetas, a group of three or four hundred, had their own language, and were early Iron Age in culture. The group vanished after they were contacted by the British in controversial and unexplained circumstances.
In the 1940s the English company draw the city plan and split the region into very small farms. At this time, the city was redivided and part of the city and the areas around were sold to immigrants, mainly Italian-Brazilians and Japanese-Brazilians of second or third generation from São Paulo. Those immigrants were primarily poor ordinary workers in the huge coffee farms of São Paulo, and perceived the inexpensive land in Cianorte as their big opportunity in life. They built houses and schools, temples and business. The city become a municipality, which, under Brazilian laws, allows the area to extend its political structure.
The Municipio of Cianorte was created through the State Law no. 2.412 of July 26, 1955. Cianorte then had around 11.000 inhabitants, mostly in the country areas. The economy was based on the coffee. A disastrous freez in the winter of 1975, in which temperatures dropped below zero for the first time in recorded weather, destroyed the coffee plantations. Coffee trees take five years to begin producing, so the economy went through a terrible crisis. Population fell and businesses closed. The disaster transformed the city. People opened clothing factories and shops in their garages and back yards. By the time agriculture began to recover, some of the mini-factories had grown to medium sized companies, and the work force was already devoted to that. During the next decades some of those garage enterprises turned into huge factories that today sell clothes to the entire country, and export a significant portion to several countries. The shop owners from several states of Brazil visit Cianorte in the beginning of every season to buy, so hotels and restaurants were opened specially for them. Agriculture is now significantly diversified—coffee is only 5% of the cropland now—and other farmers plant soy, sugar cane and corn. Beef and chicken are also produced in fairly big scale. With the factories and the agriculture doing very well, the city in the new millennium has attracted more and more immigrants from all over the country, and today the city population, business and infrastructure is increasing fast, turning Cianorte into the regional hub of that part of Ivai River Valley, which includes ten smaller cities.
Humid Subtropical climate , hot summer with frequent heavy rain (average temperature from 20°C to 27°C), mild winters with frequent frosts (average temperature from 14°C to 23°C).
Main Economical Activities
Today Cianorte is the largest producer of clothing in southern Brazil. There are 300 clothing manufacturers in the industrial and commercial districts which employ 8,000 people. The production concentrates on informal clothing such as jeans and athletic wear, men's and women's fashion, infants' and toddlers clothing. Consumers and distributors come to Cianorte throughout the year in search of fashion, but in the middle of every year the city hosts Expovest, the largest clothing fair in southern Brazil, in the city's central park. In that period the city receives about 5.500 tourists a month.
Possesses schools Fundamental, Medium and two Universities (Extension of UEM, state and Unipar, matter).
The culture of Cianorte is very diversified with: theater, movies, painting, plastic arts, music, among others. The old rail station, it was transformed Home of the Culture, with painting exhibitions, plastic arts, old pictures of the city, musicians' presentations ...