São José dos Campos

São José dos Campos is a major city and municipal seat in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, set in the Paraíba Valley between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. It began in the late sixteenth century as a Jesuit cattle farm and later became known as a sanatorium city, with a health retreat status recognised in 1935. Industrialisation followed the founding of the Technological Institute of Aeronautics in 1950 and the opening of the Dutra Highway, and today the city is one of the leading industrial and research centres in aerospace in Latin America, home to Embraer and to institutions such as ITA and INPE. It has a humid subtropical climate, with very mild winters and moderate summers, and it is the main city of the Metropolitan Region of Vale do Paraíba e Litoral Norte.