Sao Paulo - City of Brazil

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, with its metropolitan area ranking fourth among the largest urban areas in the world. The city is the capital of the State of São Paulo, the most populous Brazilian state. It is also the richest city of Brazil. The name means Saint Paul in Portuguese. São Paulo exerts global influence in commerce and finance as well as arts and entertainment.

The city has many renowned landmarks. The Immigrant's Hostel greeted millions of immigrants as they came to Brazil in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Paulista Avenue, in Downtown, is the most important financial center of the country and South America. The city is home to the São Paulo Stock Exchange . São Paulo has been home to several of the tallest buildings in Brazil, including the Mirante do Vale Building.

According the Köppen climate classification São Paulo has a humid subtropical climate. Because of the proximity of the ocean, the wind is constant at the local climate, being responsible in cooling the air down during high temperature summers or intense winters. They also make the city more humid, although acceptable during the whole year. The annual precipitation is about 1,317 millimetres mostly during summer time.

As in all Brazil, 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.

Portuguese language is the official national language, and thus the primary language taught in schools. English and Spanish are part of the official high school curriculum.

The University of São Paulo is one of the three public universities funded by the State of São Paulo.

Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie is a private university in São Paulo, Brazil.

The São Paulo high schools that obtained the best results on the 2007 Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio are Colégio Vértice, Colégio Bandeirantes, Colégio Móbile, Colégio Santa Cruz, Colégio Agostiniano Mendel, Etapa, Colégio Palmares, Cefet, Colégio Albert Sabin, ETE São Paulo, Colégio Poliedro, Colégio Miguel de Cervantes, Colégio Santa Clara, Colégio Nossa Senhora das Graças, Colégio Ítaca, Colégio Arquidiocesano Marista, Colégio Porto Seguro, Escola da Vila , Colégio Espírito Santo and Centro Educacional Pioneiro.

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 lower classes of São Paulo, particularly the poor Italian immigrants living in the quarters of Bexiga and Brás, as well as the poor who lived in the city's many shanties and cortiços . The topics of his songs are drawn from the life of low-wage urban workers, the unemployed and the vagabonds. An old-school samba band called Demônios da Garoa still plays his songs in the traditional Bar Brahma venue in the Centro.

The classical music in São Paulo is also very prevalent. 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. São Paulo has two important opera houses Teatro Municipal de São Paulo and Theatro São Pedro, and some opera performances are sometimes hosted in other theaters like Credicard Hall. 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 Latin America and in the world.

The city of São Paulo has one of the best Research and Development structures in Latin America, and has been attracting a growing number of companies due to the increasing importance of innovation as a decisive differential in the global market.

The system of science, technology and innovation of São Paulo is also 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 one of the main agencies of promotion of the scientific and technological research of the country.