Ten Brazilian Cities from the Amazon to the Pampas

Manaus, founded in 1669, grew wealthy in the late nineteenth-century rubber boom, and its ornate Amazon Theatre opera house is the symbol of that wealth. With about 2.28 million people in 2024, it is the seventh-largest city in Brazil and the main gateway to the Brazilian Amazon, reached mainly by river and air.

Belém was founded in 1616 by Portuguese colonists as Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará, near the mouth of the Amazon where it meets the Atlantic. It also grew rich in the rubber boom and is known for its Ver-o-Peso market and the Círio de Nazaré religious festival.

Teresina, founded in 1852 and named for Empress Teresa Cristina, is the only Northeastern state capital that is not on the Atlantic coast. It forms a conurbation with Timon across the Parnaíba River and is known as one of Brazil's hottest cities.

Natal was founded on Christmas Day 1599 on the Potengi River and was briefly held by the Dutch as New Amsterdam. In the Second World War the United States judged it one of the world's four most strategic points, and it later hosted South America's first rocket launch base.

Maceió was a village in 1815 and became capital of Alagoas in 1839. Its tropical coastline between the Mundaú Lagoon and the ocean earns it the nickname Brazilian Caribbean, and its economy has shifted from sugar and coconut exports toward tourism and chemicals.

Goiânia was founded on October 24, 1933 as a planned modernist capital to replace the older colonial town of Goiás as capital of its state. Its wide tree-lined avenues and green spaces reflect that planning, and it is now an agribusiness and commercial hub for central Brazil.

Campo Grande became capital of Mato Grosso do Sul in 1977 when Mato Grosso was divided, and its population grew from about 140,000 in 1970 to over 750,000 by 2007. Immigrant communities from Japan (notably Okinawa), the Middle East, Europe and Paraguay shaped it, and it sits at 592 meters elevation.

Guarulhos, dating to 1560, is the second most populous municipality in São Paulo state, just northeast of the state capital. It is home to São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport, the busiest airport in South America, which has made it a logistics, aviation and industrial center.

Campinas lies 84 kilometers northwest of São Paulo and was once a center of nineteenth-century coffee cultivation. Over the twentieth century it became a hub for technology, aerospace research and higher education, and its institutions have earned it comparisons to a Brazilian Silicon Valley.

Porto Alegre, whose name means Joyful Harbor, sits where five rivers converge to form the Guaíba, a large freshwater lagoon. It is the economic and cultural hub of Brazil's southernmost state and is known internationally as the birthplace of the World Social Forum.