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Belém is a city on the banks of the Amazon estuary,
in the northern part of Brazil.
It is the capital of the state of Pará.
It is the entrance gate to the Amazon with a busy port, airport and coach
station. Belém lies about 100 km upriver from the Atlantic Ocean. The river is
the Pará, part of the greater Amazon River system, separated from the larger
part of the Amazon delta by Ilha de Marajó Marajo
Island.
Founded in 1616,
Belém was the first European Colony on the Amazon but did not become part of the Brazilian nation until 1775,.
Its metropolitan area has approximately 2.09 million inhabitants. It is also
known as Metropolis of the Brazilian Amazon region or Cidade das
Mangueiras (city of mango trees)
due to the number of those trees found in the city. The newer part of the city
has modern buildings and skyscrapers.
The colonial
portion retains the charm of tree-filled Squares, churches and traditional
blue tiles. Belém is served by the Val-de-Cães Intl Airport that connects the city to the rest of
the country and other cities in South America. Brazilians often refer to the
city as Belém do Pará ("Belém of Pará") rather than just Belém so as to
differentiate it from the biblical Bethlehem in
the West Bank(Palestinian territories).
The city of
Belém, capital of Pará, is full of indentations and recesses forming islands
all around it. There are 55 of these islets, most of which are wild and
uninhabited, although some are home to small populations.
These include
the islands of Mosqueiro, fringed by 14 freshwater beaches, and Caratateua
which receive a large number of visitors in summertime.
Situated in the Guajará bay,
on the estuary of the Rivers Tocantins and Pará,
the city began as a river port in 1616, immediately after the French were
driven out of São Luis the capital of the state of Maranhão.
It is known as the "City of the Mango Trees"
because of the large number of those trees growing there.
History
1616 the
fortified settlement of Feliz Lusitânia, later called Nossa Senhora de Belém
do Grão Pará (Our Lady of Bethlehem of the Great Para River) and Santa Maria
de Belém (St. Mary of Bethlehem), was established, consolidating Portugese supremacy
over the French in what is now northern Brazil. Belém was given city status in 1655 and was made capital of the
State when Pará state was separated from Maranhao in 1772.
The sugar trade was important in the Belém region until the end of the 17th century.
Thereafter the city's economic importance alternately rose and fell. Cattle
ranching supplanted sugar until the 18th century, when cultivation of rice,
cotton, and coffee became profitable. With the explosion of the rubber
explotation the city became the main exporting centre of the Amazon
rubber industry, and by 1866 its position was further enhanced by the opening
of the Amazon, Tocantins, and Tapajós rivers
to navigation.
Demand for rubber latex, then grown exclusively in Amazonia, soared to
unimagined heights. Awash in money from rubber, Belém's elite began importing
civilization wholesale from abroad: a cast-iron market hall from Scotland;
streetlights and electric trams from England; dresses and lingerie from Paris. |
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