Americana

Americana is a municipality in the Brazilian state of São Paulo and part of the Metropolitan Region of Campinas. Its 2022 census population was 237,240 people living in an area of about 133.91 square kilometres. The settlement grew up around a local railway station founded in 1875 and a cotton weaving factory on a nearby farm. After 1866 thousands of former Confederate soldiers and sympathizers from the American Civil War settled in the region, since slavery was still legal in Brazil until 1888, and the place was called Vila dos Americanos until 1904, when it belonged to Santa Bárbara d'Oeste. It became a district in 1924 and a municipality in 1953. Today it has several museums, including the Pedagogic Historical Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum, and descendants of the Confederados meet quarterly at the Campo Cemetery.