São Paulo

São Paulo
—  Municipality  —
Município de São Paulo
Municipality of São Paulo
Photo montage of the city of São Paulo. From the top, left to right: São Paulo Cathedral; United Nations Business Center; São Paulo Museum of Art on Paulista Avenue; Paulista Museum; Bandeiras Monument; Octávio Frias de Oliveira Bridge; and downtown skyline from Altino Arantes Building.

Flag

Seal
Nickname(s): Terra da Garoa (Land of Drizzle) and Sampa
Motto: "Non ducor, duco"  (Latin)
"I am not led, I lead"
São Paulo
Location in Brazil
Coordinates:
Country  Brazil
Region Southeast
State São Paulo
Founded 1554
Government
 • Mayor Gilberto Kassab (PSD)
Area
 • Municipality 1,522.986 km2 (588 sq mi)
 • Metro 7,943.818 km2 (3,067.1 sq mi)
Elevation 760 m (2,493.4 ft)
Population (2011)[1][2]
 • Municipality 11,316,149(1st)
 • Density 7,216.3/km2 (18,690.1/sq mi)
 • Metro 19,889,559
 • Metro density 2,469.35/km2 (6,395.6/sq mi)
Demonym Paulistano
Time zone UTC-3 (UTC-3)
 • Summer (DST) UTC-2 (UTC-2)
Postal Code (CEP) 01000-000
Website City of São Paulo

São Paulo (Portuguese pronunciation: [sɐ̃w ˈpawlu] ( listen), Saint Paul; English: /ˌsaʊ ˈpaʊloʊ/) is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among the five-largest metropolitan areas on the planet.[3] São Paulo is the capital of the state of São Paulo, which is the most populous Brazilian state, and exerts strong regional influence in commerce and finance as well as arts and entertainment. São Paulo maintains strong international influence and is considered an Alpha World City.[4] The name of the city honors Saint Paul.

The metropolis has significant cultural, economic and political influence both nationally and internationally. It houses several important monuments, parks and museums such as the Latin American Memorial, the Museum of the Portuguese Language, São Paulo Museum of Art and the Ibirapuera Park. The Paulista Avenue is the most important financial center of São Paulo. The city holds many high profile events, like the São Paulo Art Biennial, the Brazil Grand Prix Formula 1 Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo Fashion Week, and the São Paulo Indy 300.

It is home to the São Paulo Stock Exchange, the Future Markets, and the Cereal Market Stock Exchanges (the second largest stock exchange in the World, in market value).[5] São Paulo has been home to several of the tallest buildings in Brazil, including the building Mirante do Vale, Italia, Altino Arantes, North Tower of the UNSCOM (United Nations Centre Enterprise) and many others.

People from the city of São Paulo are known as paulistanos, while paulistas designates anyone from the whole of São Paulo state, including the paulistanos. The city's Latin motto, which it has shared with the battleship and the aircraft carrier named after it, is Non dvcor, dvco, which translates as "I am not led, I lead."[6]

The city, which is also colloquially known as "Sampa" or "Cidade da Garoa" (city of drizzle), is also known for its unreliable weather, the size of its helicopter fleet, its architecture, gastronomy, severe traffic congestion, and multitude of skyscrapers.[7]

Contents

History

The first coastal settlement in Brazil, São Vicente was founded in 1532.[8] It was the first permanent Portuguese colony in the New World.[8] 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 (42 mi) inland from São Vicente, on January 25, 1554.[8] 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.

In 1924 the city was bombed during the Tenente revolts. 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.

Geography

Physical setting

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.[10] 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.

Climate

The city has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate (Cfa), according to the Köppen classification.[11] In summer, mean temperatures are between 17 °C (63 °F) and 28 °C (82 °F), and 32 °C (90 °F) on the hottest days. In winter, are between 11 °C (52 °F) and 23 °C (73 °F), and 6 °C (43 °F). on the coldest days. The highest temperature recorded was 35.3 °C (95.5 °F) on November 15, 1985.[12] and the lowest recorded was −2 °C (28 °F) on August 2, 1955, and on the same day −3.8 °C (25.2 °F) was recorded unofficially. The average temperatures throughout the year are similar to those of Sydney and Los Angeles. The Tropic of Capricorn, at about 23°27' S, passes through north of São Paulo and roughly marks the boundary between the tropical and temperate areas of South America. Because of its elevation, however, São Paulo enjoys a distinctly temperate climate.[13]

Rainfall is abundant, amounting to an annual average of 1,454 millimetres (57.2 in).[14] It is especially common in the warmer months average of 219 millimetres (8.6 in), and decreases in winter, average of 47 millimetres (1.9 in). Neither São Paulo nor the nearby coast has ever been hit by a tropical cyclone, and tornadic activity is uncommon. Snow flurries were reported officially only once, on June 25, 1918. During late winter, especially August, the city experiences the phenomenon known as "veranico" or "verãozinho" ("little summer"), which consists of a bout of unusually hot and dry weather, sometimes reaching temperatures well above 28 °C (82 °F). On the other hand, relatively cool days during summer are fairly common when persistent winds blow from the ocean. On such occasions daily high temperatures may not surpass 20 °C (68 °F), accompanied by lows often below 15 °C (59 °F).

Climate data for São Paulo (1961 - 1990, records lows since 1931)
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Record high °C (°F) 34.2
(93.6)
34.6
(94.3)
33.6
(92.5)
31.3
(88.3)
29.8
(85.6)
28.9
(84.0)
29.3
(84.7)
33
(91)
37.4
(99.3)
34.4
(93.9)
35.2
(95.4)
35.7
(96.3)
37.4
(99.3)
Average high °C (°F) 27.4
(81.3)
28
(82)
27.3
(81.1)
25.1
(77.2)
23
(73)
21.7
(71.1)
21.8
(71.2)
23.3
(73.9)
23.9
(75.0)
24.7
(76.5)
25.9
(78.6)
26.3
(79.3)
24.5
(76.1)
Daily mean °C (°F) 22.2
(72.0)
22.4
(72.3)
21.7
(71.1)
19.8
(67.6)
17.6
(63.7)
16.4
(61.5)
15.8
(60.4)
17.1
(62.8)
17.8
(64.0)
19
(66)
20.3
(68.5)
21.2
(70.2)
18.5
(65.3)
Average low °C (°F) 18.7
(65.7)
18.8
(65.8)
18.2
(64.8)
16.3
(61.3)
13.9
(57.0)
12.3
(54.1)
11.7
(53.1)
12.8
(55.0)
13.9
(57.0)
15.3
(59.5)
16.5
(61.7)
17.8
(64.0)
14.5
(58.1)
Record low °C (°F) 10.2
(50.4)
11.2
(52.2)
10.9
(51.6)
6
(43)
5.2
(41.4)
0.9
(33.6)
0.2
(32.4)
−2.2
(28.0)
2.1
(35.8)
4.2
(39.6)
6.9
(44.4)
7.3
(45.1)
−2.2
(28.0)
Precipitation mm (inches) 240
(9.45)
250
(9.84)
160
(6.3)
80
(3.15)
70
(2.76)
60
(2.36)
40
(1.57)
30
(1.18)
70
(2.76)
130
(5.12)
140
(5.51)
190
(7.48)
1,460
(57.48)
Avg. precipitation days 18 16 13 9 9 6 7 7 9 11 13 16 134
Sunshine hours 148.8 150.8 145.7 141.0 151.9 144.0 164.3 155.0 126.0 136.4 144.0 130.2 1,738.1
Source no. 1: INMET — Clima[15], Hong Kong Observatory[16] for data of sunshine hours
Source no. 2: World Weather Information Service[17], for data of precipitation days

Law and government

São Paulo's most recent mayors were:

Mayor Entry in Left Office in Political Party
Gilberto Kassab 2006 Democratas
José Serra 2005 2006 PSDB
Marta Suplicy 2001 2004 PT
Celso Pitta 1997 2000 PPB, later PTN
Paulo Maluf 1993 1996 PPB (PP)
Luiza Erundina 1989 1992 PT
Jânio Quadros 1986 1988 PTB
Mário Covas 1983 1985 PMDB

Metropolitan region

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 19,889,559[18] 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),[19] behind Tokyo and Jakarta, which includes 2 contiguous legally defined metropolitan regions, and 3 microregions.

Subdivisions

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).[20][21] 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.

Demographics

According to the 2010 IBGE Census, there were 10,659,386 people residing in the city of São Paulo.[22] The census revealed the following numbers: 6,824,668 White people (60.6%), 3,433,218 Brown (Multiracial) people (30.5%), 736,083 Black people (6.5%), 246,244 Asian people (2.2%), 21,318 Amerindian people (0.2%).[23]

In 2010, the city of São Paulo was the most populous city in Brazil and in South America.[24]

In 2010, the city had 2,146,077 opposite-sex couples and 7,532 same-sex couples. The population of São Paulo was 52.6% female and 47.4% male.[23]

São Paulo is the most ethnically diverse city in Brazil.[25] 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 many German, Swiss and Portuguese immigrants 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.[26]

After the abolition of slavery (1888), São Paulo received increasingly large numbers of European immigrants, most of them coming from Italy, followed by Portugal, Germany and Spain. In 1897, Italians are 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.[27] 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 witness a large wave of Bolivian migration.[28]

São Paulo City in 1886
Immigrants Percentage of immigrants in foreign born population [7]
Italians 47.9%
Portuguese 29.3%
Germans 9.9%
Spaniards 3.2%

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.[29]

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.[30] 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.[30] 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."[30]

São Paulo City
Year Italians Percentage of the City[30]
1886 5,717 13%
1893 45,457 35%
1900 75,000 31%
1910 130,000 33%
1916 187,540 37%

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%).[31]

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 ). In this area they composed 41% of the population.[32]

Today, the city has the largest community of Italian and Portuguese descendants.

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.[33] The main groups, considering all the metropolitan area, are: 6 million people of Italian descent,[34] 3 million people of Portuguese descent,[35] 1.7 million people of African descent,[36] 1 million people of Arab descent,[37] 665,000 people of Japanese descent,[37] 400,000 people of German descent,[37] 120,000 people of Chinese descent,[37] 40,000 Jews,[38] 60,000 Bolivian immigrants,[39] 150,000 people of Greek descent,[37] 250,000 people of French descent[37] and 50,000 people of Korean descent.[40]

Changing demographics of the city of São Paulo

Source: Planet Barsa Ltda.[41]

Religion

Religion Percentage Number
Catholic 73.11% 7,107,261
Protestant 15.94% 1,663,131
No religion 8.97% 936,474
Kardecist 2.75% 286,600
Buddhist 0.65% 67,591
Umbanda and Candomblé 0.46% 48,400
Jewish 0.36% 37,500

Source: IBGE 2000.[42]

Languages

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.[43]

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.[44][45]

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.[46]

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.[47]

In some areas of the city is still possible to find descendants of immigrants that speak German[48] (specially in the area of Brooklin paulista) and Russian or East European languages (specially in the area of Vila Zelina)[49]

Statistics

Economy

São Paulo is the 10th richest city in the world,[66] and is expected to be the 6th richest in 2025.[67] 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.[68] According to PricewaterhouseCoopers annual economic growth of the city is 4.2%.[69]

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 spatial segregation.[70] Despite being the most important financial centre of the country, São Paulo also presents a high degree of informality in its economy.[71]

São Paulo has the largest concentration of German businesses worldwide[72] and also considered the largest Swedish industrial hub alongside Gothenburg.[73]

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.[74] The per capita income for the city was R$ 32,493 (2008).[75]

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.[76][77]

Companies in Financial Times Global 500 of São Paulo in 2011[78]
SP Corporation BRA World
1 Itaú Unibanco 3 52
2 AmBev 4 79
3 Bradesco 5 93
4 Banco Santander Brasil 7 175
5 Itaúsa 9 255


Science and technology

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.

Luxury goods

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 April 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., Prada, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Emilio Pucci, Alexandre de Paris, Canali, La Martina and Daslu department store. Fendi, Christian Louboutin, Balmain, Dolce & Gabbana, Tod's, the Argentinian brand Etiqueta Negra, the English Issa London, the French Twins for Peace, flagships of Dior, Gucci, Cartier and the new store of Chanel, a flagship store, will be installed at the mall 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, D&G, Diane von Fürstenberg, Gucci, Missoni, M Missoni, Kate Spade, Marc Jacobs, Bottega Veneta, Christian Louboutin, Salvatore Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton, Ermenegildo Zegna, Max Mara, Tiffany & Co. and Swarovski. The Oscar de la Renta, Longchamp, Tod's and TopShop will be installed at the mall in 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, Nicole Miller, Gucci, Chanel, Ermenegildo Zegna, Longchamp, Tod's, Yves Saint Laurent, TopShop/TopMan, Burberry, Lanvin, Miu Miu, Diane von Fürstenberg, Goyard, Polo Ralph Lauren, Juicy Couture, Kate Spade, Bottega Veneta, Carolina Herrera, Coach, Inc., Dolce&Gabbana, Sephora, Tory Burch, Van Cleef & Arpels, Rimowa, Paula Cahen D'Anvers, Vicomte A. and Daslu.

The Jardins neighborhood, is one of the most sophisticated area of the city, where upscale restaurants and hotels are located. The New York Times has compared Oscar Freire street to Rodeo Drive.[79]

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, 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, Christofle and Versace.

Outside the 'luxury quadrilateral', is the Brooklin CBD. In this neighborhood some of the city's upscale hotels are located, such 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).

Panorama of Paulista Avenue.

Urban planning

São 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, São Paulo differs considerably from other 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 São 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 São 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.

Events

The city of Sao Paulo hosts approximately 90 thousand events every year, featuring arts, business, fashion and beyond. There are some Web sites and magazines specialising in the cultural events in the city, including the Agenda Cultural de São Paulo (São Paulo's Cultural Calendar).[80]

São Paulo Pancake Cook-Off

The São Paulo Pancake Cook-Off is a popular cooking festival held annually in the city center. Thousands of amateur chefs from throughout Brazil migrate to the city every summer to compete with other chefs to see who has made the finest São Paulo Pancake. The most recent winner of 2011 was a certain Felipe Ramos, a Portugese National from the Isle of Madeira with his curry-flavored "Pestana Palms" Pancake.

São Paulo Art Bienal

The São Paulo Art Biennial is a cultural event hosted in town every two years. Almost 1 million people visited the 26th Biennial in 2004. Its theme was chosen to enable a wide range of artistic positions to feel comfortable. In addition, to an intensification of the North-South dialogue inside Brazil, the Bienal's aims include the promoting of links between non-European cultures along a South-South orientation.[81]

São Paulo Fashion Week

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.

São Paulo Gay Pride Parade

The first São Paulo Gay Pride Parade took place in 1987, and attracted a crowd, then impressive, of 20,000 people, but since then the event grows in participation, size and significance. The event is a tourist draw for the city, attracting larger and larger numbers of people, reaching around 2 million visitors in the last estimated official number available, from the 2008 parade. It is opened by the city's mayor, running along the Paulista Avenue, accompanied by several Trio Elétricos. The last parade, held on June 6, 2010, attracted about 3.5 million people according to official numbers, given by the Polícia Militar.[82][83] 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 2002, the Parade has also become associated with a wider long cultural program, lasting at least a month.

March for Jesus

The March for Jesus is an Evangelical parade that takes place on Corpus Christi Thursday every year in Zona Norte, or North Side. It is organized by Renascer em Cristo Church, a Neo-Pentecostal denomination created in the 1980s which has grown significantly in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2006, more than 2 million people took part in the event, according to official estimates.[84] Evangelicals from across Brazil go to São Paulo on the holiday in June for the march, as live Christian bands lead the way. The annual march, organized by evangelical churches, features concerts with 30 Christian bands carried on 17 flatbed trucks performing live as participants march through Brazil's financial capital.

International Transport Industry Show

The Salão Internacional da Indústria do Transporte (FENATRAN) is held in São Paulo in the Park Anhembi, every two years and usually in October.[85] It is a major event presenting new trends for the industry related to transport, such as truck manufacturers, components for vehicles, fuel, motors and services for the industry, such as financial and insurance companies.

International Film Festival

The São Paulo International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in São Paulo, Brazil since 1976. It is one of the most important Brazilian film festival along with Rio Film Festival and Brasília National Film Festival.

Electronic Language International Festival

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.[86]

Festival of Electronic Art

Every two years, Associação Cultural Videobrasil's International Electronic Art Festival brings works by artists from all over the world to São Paulo. In keeping with the constant transformations in media and support, the curatorship has added installations, performances, VJs, CD-ROM art, and Internet art to the programme. Art shows, debates and meetings introduce new ideas and artwork, setting new guidelines for contemporary art in Brazil. Exhibitions featuring work by prominent electronic artists are also part of the Festival. Brazilian pioneers such as Rafael França and Olhar Eletrônico, and international guests such as Nam June Paik, Bill Viola and Gary Hill, have featured in the event's past editions. Each edition has a theme of its own.[87]

Carnival

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. Samba Schools: Unidos de Vila Maria; Rosas de Ouro; X9; Vai Vai; Águia de Ouro; Camisa Verde e Branco; Império de Casa Verde; Dragões da Real; Acadêmicos do Tucuruvi; Gaviões da Fiel; Mancha Verde; Tom Maior; Pérola Negra; Mocidade Alegre.

Virada Cultural

Virada Cultural is an annual event held since 2005 by the Municipality of São Paulo, promoting 24 hours of non-stop cultural activities held during the month of May, every year, always starting on a Saturday night and ending on a Sunday afternoon. The event was inspired by the annual event named Nuit Blanche in Paris, with many cultural entertainment events throughout the night. The activities include music shows, dance shows, classical & orchestra presentations, theater plays, cinema, poetry, anime/comics fans meetings and acrobatic performances. The event takes place in several parts of the downtown area, as well as some cultural centers, clubs and selected schools. In 2010, according to São Paulo Municipality, the event attracted around 4 million people.

Miss Universe 2011

São Paulo hosted the Miss Universe 2011 pageant.

Other Events

Education

Educational institutions

The city has several universities and colleges:

There are more than 578 universities in the whole state of São Paulo.[90]

Educational system

São Paulo has a quite well developed system of primary and secondary, both public and private, and a variety of vocational-technical schools. More than nine-tenths of the population is literate, and roughly the same proportion of those age 7 to 14 are enrolled in school. Among the many institutions of higher, the largest and most esteemed is the state-supported University of São Paulo (USP), established in 1934, which incorporated the historic College of Law (Faculdade de Direito) in the old São Francisco Square. USP, as it is generally known, enrolls a very high proportion of Brazil's doctoral students and has spawned a wide variety of research institutes and policy centre. Affiliated institutions include the Butantan Institute, a world-famous centre for research on snakes and the production of toxins and antitoxins.

The Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo was established in 1946 and has earned an enviable reputation among the continent's private institutions of higher learning. Also of note among Greater São Paulo's many other public and private colleges and universities is the School of Business Administration of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation.

Health care

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:[91]

Municipal health

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.

Culture

Music

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. The group of Mutantes were known 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.[93] 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.[94] 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 the world.

Music halls and concert halls

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.

At this time, the authoritys are preparing the coming next of many new very important halls, like the new Praça das Artes, with the Municipal Conservatory of Music Chamber Hall, and others veneus, like, Cultura Artistica, Teatro Sérgio Cardoso with a venue for only dance performances, and the gorgeous Herzog&DeMeron's Centro Cultural Luz, for Ballet, Opera, theater, and concerts, with three huge halls, thera are also the auditorium of the Latin-American Cultural Center, for concerts, The Mozarteum, held many concerts throw all over the year,this list it's not exhausting, because, almost every month, new places come out.

Literature

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.

Theaters

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 wasn't the most important. It was only during the 19th's century, second half, that a cultural, musical and theatrical life, begins in the city, at the same time starts a very fast growing development,in almost all aspects of urban life, 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. The most important period for the art in São Paulo took place during, the 40's, it was the avant-garde time. It was in São Paulo a professional company, Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia, or TBC (Brazilian Theater of Comedy), but many others come with. 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 hundreds of theatres and halls, going from classical music, ballet to avant-garde plays and Broadway musicals.

Museums

Also popularly known as "Ipiranga Museum", the first monument especially built to preserve the memory of the Independence of Brazil, opened on September 7, 1895, with the name of Museu de Ciências Naturais (Natural Science Museum). In 1919, it became once again a historic museum. Having the architectural influence of the Versailles Palace in France, the Ipiranga's collection, with approximately 100,000 pieces, comprises works of art, furniture, clothing, and appliances that once belonged to famous people who took part in Brazilian history, such as explorers, rulers, and freedom fighters. Its facilities are also home to a library with 100,000 books and the "Centro de Documentação Histórica," Historic Documentation Center, with 40,000 manuscripts.

Stretching over 78,000 square meters, Memorial da América Latina (Latin America's Memorial) was conceived to be a place for the integration of Latin American countries and their roots and cultures. Memorial is home to the headquarters of Parlamento Latino-Americano – Parlatino (Latin American Parliament). Designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer, Memorial has an exhibition pavilion, where there is a permanent exhibition of the continent's craftwork production; a library with books, newspapers, magazines, videos, films and records about the history of Latin America; and an auditorium with capacity for 1,679 people.

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,[95] 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.[96]

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.[97]

Occupying an area of 700 square meters, the animals shown in the museum are samples of the country's tropical fauna and were prepared (embalmed) more than 50 years ago. In the entrance hall, there is information about the main activities carried out by USP's staff and by the museum's researchers. The animals are grouped together according to their classification: fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, and some invertebrates such as reefs, crustaceans and mollusks. The library, specialized in zoology, has modern facilities and equipment and serve both the scientific community and the public in general. It has 73,850 works, of which 8,473 are books and 2,364 are newspapers, in addition to theses and maps.

The museum was founded by the journalist Assis Chateaubriand and directed 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, unique in the world. MASP has one of world's most important collections of European art,the most important collections are about Italian and French painting schools, but there are including works of art by distinguished artists of others European schools, such as Degas, Renoir, Modigliani and Bonnard, among others, The collection contains over 9,000 works of art's masterpieces of inestimable value,.

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.

Tourism and recreation

São Paulo is a major cultural centre. The city has an ethnically diverse metropolitan area, with predominant Italian, Portuguese and African background. It also has a significant number of Spanish, Lebanese and Japanese descendents. São Paulo 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.[98] 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).

Landmarks

Parks

There are several parks in the city of São Paulo:

Panorama Ibirapuera Park.

Zoos

The Zoological Park of São Paulo is the largest in Brazil. Located in an area of ​​824,529 m2 (8,875,156 sq ft) of original Atlantic Forest, has approximatelly 4 miles of alleys. It houses the headwaters of the historic stream of Ipiranga, at south side of the city. Displays more than 3,200 animals, 102 species of mammals, 216 species of birds, 95 species of reptiles, 15 species of amphibians and 16 species of invertebrates, in enclosures that replicate the natural habitats of these animals. The Zoo's farm of 572 ha, produces vegetables used in the manufacture of feed for various animals, and material to the enclosures where the animals stay. There are animals that need extra area for mating.

The zoo also counts with a nursery for rejected puppies and incubators for hatching eggs of birds and reptiles. His library of more than four thousand volumes is open to the public. Its partnerships with other state, federal and foreign research institutions include researches that aim to facilitate the preservation of endangered species.

São Paulo also has a Safari Zoo located in its southeastern side, in the district of Cursino.

Aquarium

The Aquário de São Paulo (São Paulo Aquarium) it's one of the largest aquariums in Latin America, with an area of 9,000 square meters and 2 million liters of water. It has approximately 3,000 copies of about 300 species of animals, and it's located in the Ipiranga neighbourhood.

Sports

Football

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.

Football/soccer teams
Club League Venue Established
SC Corinthians Série A Alfredo Schürig Stadium

16,000 (28,000 record)

1910
SE Palmeiras Série A Palestra Itália Stadium

29,173 (40,283 record)

1914
São Paulo FC Série A Morumbi Stadium

67,428 (138,032 record)[99]

1935
Portuguesa Série A Canindé Stadium

19,717 (25,000 record)

1920
Juventus Campeonato Paulista Série A3 Rua Javari Stadium

2,730 (9,000 record)

1924
Nacional Campeonato Paulista Série A2 Nicolau Alayon Stadium

9,650 (22,000 record)

1919

São Silvestre Road Race

The São Silvestre Race takes place every New Year's Eve. It was first held in 1925, when the competitors ran about 8,000 metres across the streets. Since then, the distance raced varied, but is now set at 15 km (9.3 mi).

Brazilian Grand Prix

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.

São Paulo Indy 300

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 are 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.

Other sports

Volleyball, basketball and tennis are other major sports. There are several traditional sports clubs in São Paulo that are home for teams in many championships. The most important are Esporte Clube Pinheiros (waterpolo, volleyball, swimming, basketball and handball), Clube Atlhetico Paulistano (basketball), Esporte Clube Banespa (volleyball, handball and futsal), Esporte Clube Sírio (basketball), Associação Atlética Hebraica (basketball), São Paulo Athletic Club (rugby union), Pasteur Athlétique Club (rugby union), Clube de Regatas Tietê and Clube Atlético Ipiranga, also, on Bom Retiro, we have the Baseball Stadium, Mie Nishi.

International sports events

The following international sports events have been held in São Paulo:

Transportation

Highways

The city is crossed by 10 major Brazilian motorways and automobiles are still the main means to get into the city. They are:

Rodoanel

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.[100] 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,[101] and is being built by DERSA.[102]

Railways

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.[103] 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,[104] which will be a milestone in the revitalisation and improvement of the Brazilian passenger railway services.

Airports

[105]

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 one 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.[106]

Panoramic photo of Campo de Marte Airport and in the background the Skyline of the district of Santana

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.[107]

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.[108] 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 more than 45 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 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.[109]

Metro

The city has actually 379,7 km, operated by three companies, the first is 69.0 km (42.9 mi) of underground railway systems (34.6 km (21.4) fully underground) (the São Paulo Metro,[110] locally known as the Metrô), with 5 lines in operation and 59 stations,but at this moment other stations and extensions of two line are in work, thisis complemented by another 260.7 km (162.0 mi) of Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos (CPTM, or "Paulista Company of Metropolitan Trains") railways, the third one is Via4. Both CPTM, Via4 and Metrô, so the underground and railway lines carry some 7 million people on an average weekday, and new underground lines to be constructed are expected to add another million people to the system within the next five years. The projects expected to expand São Paulo's urban railway system from the current 322 km (200 mi) to more than 500 km (310 mi) on the next 10 years, surpassing the London Underground.[111]

São Paulo has three rapid transport systems:

São Paulo has no tram lines, although trams used to be common in the first half of the 20th century.[112] 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 five lines 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.

Buses

The bulk of the public transport (government and private companies) is composed of approximately 17,000 buses (including about 290 trolley buses),[113] coloured uniformly according to the non-central region served (ex.: light green for the buses that go North West, dark blue for the Northern area). Until the past few years, there was a strong presence of informal transport vans (dab vans), but the vast majority of such vans are already fully registered with the city council, legalized and operating under the same color scheme of the main system.

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).

Helicopters

Due to the intense traffic jams on the roads combined with fears of kidnappings among its richer citizens, São Paulo has become the city with the highest number of helicopters in the world. With 462 private helicopters[115] in 2008, and around 70,000 flights per year within central São Paulo, according to the British newspaper The Guardian, is turning into a "real life South-American episode" of The Jetsons.[116]

Helicopters enable businessmen and other executives to sharply reduce their commuting time, at least to the most important meetings and conferences. They are also used to bring executives in from their homes in distant parts of the greater metropolitan area and back to them at the end of the work week. Some companies own their helicopters, others lease them, and still others use helicopter taxi services. One suburban helicopter shuttle service, located about 15 miles (24 km) from the center of the city in a suburb called Tamboré, is unique in the sense that it is run and operated totally by women, including its pilots.

Current critical problems

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.[117] 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.[117]

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:

Solutions

Twin towns and sister cities

São Paulo is twinned with:[124]

  Americas   Europe   Asia   Africa
Buenos Aires, Argentina Paris, France[125] Yerevan, Armenia Luanda, Angola
La Paz, Bolivia Coimbra, Portugal Beijing, China[126] Bamako, Mali
Toronto, Canada Milan, Italy[127] Seoul, South Korea[128]
Mexico City, México Funchal, Portugal Tel Aviv, Israel[129]
Chicago, United States Lisbon, Portugal Amman, Jordan
Asunción, Paraguay Porto, Portugal Damascus, Syria
Montevideo, Uruguay Bucharest, Romania Osaka, Japan[130]
Lima, Peru Cluj-Napoca, Romania Ningbo, China
Mendoza, Argentina Barcelona, Spain[131] Macau
Córdoba, Spain[132] New Delhi, India
Santiago de Compostela, Spain Naha, Japan[133]


See also

References

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ^ Censo 2010: população do Brasil é de 190.732.694 pessoas
  2. ^ url=http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/estimativa2009/POP2009_DOU.pdf IBGE
  3. ^ São Paulo beats more than 20 million inhabitants
  4. ^ www.lboro.ac.uk The World According to GaWC 2008 – Retrieved on July 6, 2009
  5. ^ [1] Estadão – The second largest stock exchange
  6. ^ "E São Paulo". Navios De Guerra Brasileiros. Brazilian Navy. Archived from the original on July 3, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080703230813/http://www.naval.com.br/NGB/S/S031/S031.htm. Retrieved May 3, 2009. 
  7. ^ "São Paulo holds Gay Pride parade," BBC
  8. ^ a b c Rachel Lawrence: 2010, Page 183
  9. ^ "Pico do Jaraguá Mountain Official Website". Picodojaragua.com.br. http://www.picodojaragua.com.br/. Retrieved April 17, 2010. 
  10. ^ Brazilian Departamento de Águas e Energia Elétrica, "International Competitive Bidding Tender Announcement"
  11. ^ "Climatic classification in São Paulo State". Instituto Agronômico de Campinas. http://www.scielo.br/pdf/brag/v66n4/22.pdf. Retrieved October 25, 2011. 
  12. ^ "São Paulo 40 Graus". Urbanistas.com.br. March 2, 2009. http://urbanistas.com.br/sp/2009/03/02/sao-paulo-40-graus/. Retrieved April 17, 2010. 
  13. ^ "Britannica Online Encyclopedia – Climate of São Paulo". Britannica.com. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/701311/Sao-Paulo/261980/From-city-to-metropolis#. Retrieved April 17, 2010. 
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  18. ^ Constituent municipalities as listed by Obervatorio das Metropoles. Population figures from the sum of the municipalities' population: IBGE
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  22. ^ 2010 IGBE Census (Portuguese)
  23. ^ a b 2010 IGBE Census (Portuguese)
  24. ^ The largest Brazilian cities - 2010 IBGE Census
  25. ^ São Paulo has the most diversity of Brazil
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  30. ^ a b c d Do Outro Lado do Atlântico – Um Século de Imigração Italiana no Brasil
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  48. ^ Germans immigrated to Sao Paulo and helped to form the middle-class
  49. ^ Russians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Poles immigrated to Vila Zelina in São Paulo
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