Francisco Beltrão

Francisco Beltrão
Francisco Beltrão. November, 2004
Flag
Francisco Beltrão
Coordinates: 26°05′S 53°03′W / 26.083°S 53.050°W / -26.083; -53.050
Country	Brazil
State	Paraná
Government
• Mayor	Cantelmo Neto (PMDB)
Area
• Total	731 km2 (282 sq mi)
Elevation	650 m (2,130 ft)
Population (2013)
• Total	84,437
• Density	120/km2 (300/sq mi)
	IBGE
Time zone	UTC (UTC-3)
Website	(pt) franciscobeltrao.pr.gov.br

Francisco Beltrão, established December 14, 1952, is the largest town in the southwest region of Paraná state in Brazil. In 2010, the population is about 80.727 inhabitants, of which 85% live in the city proper and 15% on the surrounding land. Francisco Beltrão is very close to two other towns, Marmeleiro and Renascença. Its economy is based on agriculture, corn crops, turkey and chicken meat exportation, textile, aluminium pans, and mobile industries, public services and small commerce. The mayor in 2008 is Vilmar Reichemback.

Brief

Location of the town.

Francisco Beltrão is in the center of the Southwest region of the Paraná state, which encompasses about 500,000 inhabitants in a 20,000 square kilometer (about 7,700 square mile) land area, nearly 5% of the whole state's population in near 10% of the entire state's area. Most of its surrounding population resides in small agriculture-based villages and towns with only low-level services, so people from these places often utilize services in a larger town like FB, thus concentrating a large number of the region's economic activities.

Paulo Abdala Airport serves the city.

Geography

Francisco Beltrão is located in the third parana's highland. The downtown elevation is around 550 meters while the surrounding area rises as high 950 m, causing the city to take on a bowl shape. Several rivers run through this area, the most important being the "Rio Marrecas", where the first settlement was established about 1950.

Climate

Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as humid subtropical (Cfa).^[1][2]

The weather is warm most of the year with sometimes hot days in the summer when temperatures reach over 32 °C (90 °F) in the hotter days. The average high temperature is 30 °C (86 °F) with lows are around 18 °C (64 °F). Summer time winds are calm which causes the heat index to be high.

The average winter low is 8 °C (46 °F), with temperatures falling below the freezing point up to ten days per year. With highs around 20 °C (68 °F), the winds are a bit stronger than in summer. During nights of calm wind, the bowl shape of the city causes the cold air to descend in the center of the bowl, causing the temperatures to decline much more than in the surrounding areas. However, as soon as the sun rises, this effect quickly vanishes.

The lowest recorded temperature was in July 2000 at −5 °C (23 °F). The highest was in November 1985 at 38 °C (100 °F). Snow is rare, appearing once or twice every ten years (most recent snows were in July 2007, July 1975, July 1965, and July 1955). Freezes are more common and occur throughout the winter, up to 20 days a year.

The average rainfall is high, around 2,000 mm (79 in) per year.

Economy

Central Square

Since 2000 the GDP has growth over 7.5% annually.^[3] Unemployment has dropped from 11% of its 35,000 economically active people to somewhat over 6% as of 2006.^[4] For the last three years, the city was proportionally first (and generally no lower than fifth)(highest in job-creation throughout the Paraná.^[5]

Culture

Most inhabitants are descendants from Italian and German immigrants, who first lived in the southern states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina and then come to the region where the city is placed now, generally in the 1940-1960 timeframe. According to some researchers, 50% of population descends from Italian immigrants while 15% are descendants of German immigrants. These proportions are likely to decrease as young people move around Brazil and northern Brazilian residents move to this city.

Coordinates: 26°05′S 53°03′W / 26.083°S 53.050°W / -26.083; -53.050

References