Salvador - City of Brazil

Salvador is a city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first colonial capital of Brazil, the city is one of the oldest in the country and in the New World; for a long time, it was also known as Bahia, and appears under that name on many maps and books from before the mid-20th century. Salvador is the third most populous Brazilian city, after São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and it is the eighth most populous city in Latin America, after Mexico City, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Lima, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro and Santiago of Chile.

Salvador is located on a small, roughly triangular peninsula that separates Todos os Santos Bay from the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The bay, which gets its name from having been discovered on All Saints' Day forms a natural harbor. Salvador is a major export port, lying at the heart of the Recôncavo Baiano, a rich agricultural and industrial region encompassing the northern portion of coastal Bahia. The local terrain is diverse ranging from flat to rolling to hills and low mountains.

Salvador has a typical tropical climate, with warm to hot temperatures and high relative humidity throughout the year. However, these conditions are relieved by a near absence of extreme temperatures and trade winds blowing from the ocean.The coastline is quite diverse, featuring sandy beaches, sea cliffs, mangrove swamps, and a number of islands, the largest of which, Itaparica, includes a resort area.

Baía de Todos os Santos was first encountered by Europeans and christened in 1502. In 1510, a ship, containing the Portuguese settler Caramuru, wrecked near the borough of Rio Vermelho. In 1534, Francisco Pereira Coutinho founded a town near Barra borough, called Vila Velha, Portuguese for "Old town". In 1549, a fleet of Portuguese settlers headed by Tomé de Sousa, the first Governor-General of Brazil, established Salvador. Built on a high cliff overlooking All Saints bay as the first colonial capital of colonial Brazil, it quickly became its main sea port and an important center of the sugar industry and the slave trade. Salvador was divided into an upper and a lower city, the upper city was the administrative and main religious area and it was where the majority of the population lived. The lower city was the financial center, with a port and market. In the late 19th Century, funiculars and an elevator, the Elevador Lacerda, were built to link the areas.

Salvador has been the birthplace of many noted Brazilians, including musicians such as song-writer Dorival Caymmi, Música Popular Brasileira star Gal Costa, and Grammy Award winner Gilberto Gil. Gil later went on to serve as a city council member (vereador) and is the Brazilian Minister of Culture in the cabinet of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Also internationally recognized are the city's Blocos Afros, such as Olodum, Ara Ketu, and Ilê Aiyê. Notable writers associated with Salvador include Jorge Amado, considered one of Brazil's greatest authors and fabulists, and João Ubaldo Ribeiro. The famous Brazilian visual artist Carybé is based in Salvador as well. Celebrities born in Salvador include supermodel Adriana Lima.

The Salvador coastline is one of the longest for cities in Brazil. There are 50 km of beaches distributed between the High City and the Low City, from Inema, in the railroad suburb to the Praia do Flamengo, on the other side of town. While the Low City beaches are bordered by the waters of the All Saints Bay , the High City beaches, from Farol da Barra to Flamengo, are bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The exception is Porto da Barra, the only High City beach located in the All Saints Bay.

Portuguese language is the official national language, and thus the primary language taught in schools. But English and Spanish are part of the official high school curriculum. There are also international schools, such as the Pan American School of Bahia.

Top high schools of the city are Colégio Anglo-Brasileiro, Colégio Militar de Salvador, Colégio Anchieta, Colégio Oficina, Cefet, Colégio Miró, Colégio Antônio Vieira, Colégio Marista de Salvador, Colégio Módulo, Colégio Sartre, Colégio São Paulo, Colégio Cândido Portinari, Colégio Integral, Colégio São José, Colégio Alfred Nobel, Colégio Nossa Senhora da Conceição, Colégio Santíssimo Sacramento, Colégio Diplomata, Centro Educacional Nossa Senhora do Resgate, Colégio Gregor Mendel.


Its rich, historical and cultural aspects were inherited by the miscigenation of such ethnic groups as Native-Indian, African, and European. This mixture can be seen in the religion, golden cuisine, cultural manifestations, and customs of Bahia's joyful, hospitable people. These unique characteristics arouse curiosity in everyone's minds.

In Salvador, religion is a major contact point between European and African influences. Salvador was the seat of the first bishopric in colonial Brazil and the first bishop, Pero Fernandes Sardinha, arrived already in 1552. The Jesuits, led by the Manuel da Nóbrega, also arrived in the 16th century and worked in converting the Indigenous peoples of the region to Roman Catholicism.

The lives of catholic saints and their own physical features, portrayed on sculptures and drawings, made the identification with the orixás easier. Salvador is a city where different ethnic and cultural aspects are mixed up, but religious syncretism remains as one of its most intriguing features. Its ancient churches are a proof of the power of Catholicism, which was brought by the Portuguese and forced upon Blacks and Indigenous.