Sao Paulo

Sao Paulo, Brazil, is one of the most powerful forces, if not the most powerful force in South America. At over eleven million inhabitants in the city limits alone and more than nineteen million in its greater metropolitan area, Sao Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, as well as its political, economical, and cultural capital. It is, in fact, the largest city in the entire southern hemisphere - and with 1523 square kilometers of land, it has more than enough real estate to hold onto that claim.

Sao Paulo is Portuguese for Saint Paul, but it's been a long time since that name was first bestowed - Sao Paulo has its origins in a Jesuit colony near the coast of the then-unexplored continent of South America founded on January 25, 1554. Built on the river Tiete, Sao Paulo quickly became the natural gateway city into the fertile plains and plateaus to the west. Many explorers passed through Sao Paulo on their way into the Brazilian interior in their day as well, and many monuments throughout the city still stand in symbolic praise of their courage in the face of a dark and forbidding country.

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Visitors interested in passing through Sao Paulo may like to know some of the unique geographical features that make Sao Paulo what it is. Built on a plateau, Sao Paulo is part of the Brazilian highlands, with an average height of around eight hundred meters above sea level, even though it is only seventy kilometers from the southern Atlantic Ocean. The main geographical feature, and one essential to the life and prosperity of the city, is the Tiete river, which flows east out of the Brazilian interior to where it empties into the Atlantic ocean less than a hundred kilometers away. During the late twentieth century, the river was so polluted by raw sewage and industrial pollutants that it could no longer be used as a source of water and cleanliness anywhere in or downstream from the city. That has, however, changed radically with cleanup programs instituted over the last few decades.

Travelers visiting Sao Paulo can expect a warm subtropical climate. Sao Paulo rarely gets above 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) during the summer, and rarely drops below freezing in the winter. All in all, the most common weather feature in Sao Paulo is rain; other than that, visitors to the city are likely to have good weather and an enjoyable time during the duration of their stay in this beautiful city.

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More than 11 million people live within the limits of the city of Sao Paulo, so trying to talk about "the people" of Sao Paulo is a bit of a challenge to say the least. However, there are some good tips and pointers potential visitors to the city can keep in mind during their stay. The most common thing, and one of the most obvious, is of course the language - the official language of Brazil and thus Sao Paulo is Portuguese. A visitor passing through the country would do well to learn some basic Portuguese before visiting the country. If you already know a related language like Spanish, French, or Italian, you'll be even better off, and will likely be able to get to a point of serviceable communication with little or no effort.

Sao Paulo is also the most ethnically diverse of all the cities in Brazil, so be prepared for just about anything during your visit. Because there are so many communities and groups, it's impossible to say which one makes up a "majority" - rather, some are simply more visible than are others. Italians, for example, make up a good six million members of the population, while actual Portuguese descendents around three million. About a third of a million Japanese live in Sao Paulo, and one hundred and twenty thousand Jews. Only around eighteen thousand descendents of the country's original inhabitants live in Sao Paulo.

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Sao Paulo is enormous - the largest city in the entire southern hemisphere, let alone South America and Brazil. As such, it is a major economic force in the world at large, with actions impacting the global market on a level very few cities in the world can even begin to imitate. Sao Paulo is the 19th richest city in the world; not the first or second, perhaps, but still on the same list as New York, Tokyo, London, and the other foremost global cities. Its gross domestic product in 2006 was around ninety five billion US dollars, a full seven percent of the overall Brazilian GDP. While Sao Paulo used to rely heavily on industry as a source of income, it has in recent years been switching more and more to a focus on tourism and services for the rest of the country of Brazil.

For you, the traveler and visitor, that means very good things. Sao Paulo has become increasingly friendlier to tourists and other visitors as it has grown and expanded, meaning that you and anyone else who visits the city is going to be welcomed with open arms. There will be hotels, restaurants, theaters, plays, musicals, operas, and symphonies - everything the discerning modern traveler could possibly hope to find. If you do a little research before your visit, you'll be able to find all your options and make the best decision as applies to you personally.

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During your visit to Sao Paulo, there are plenty of places to sleep and eat well. Should you be so inclined, in fact, you could make an entire trip out of just the fine dining available in the city - Sao Paulo, as the largest city in South America, also has some of the widest selections of fine dining from Brazil, South America, and around the world. Sao Paulo is known, in fact, specifically for its varied cuisine - it is something of a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, and as such offers a wide variety of different culinary options to those of discerning taste. Sao Paulo is full of sophisticated and excellent cuisine from some of the best chefs in the southern hemisphere, offering everything from Chinese to Arabic to some of Brazil's own most famous dishes.

If you're on a budget, never fear - the best restaurants aren't the only ones. There are a wide range of restaurants from fast food to street vendors to fancy five star establishments, so you can be assured of getting great food no matter where, when, and on what sort of budget you happen to be traveling. If you're entertaining clients or meeting possible business acquaintances, what better way to entertain and impress them than to take them out to a great meal at a fine restaurant? It's amazing how many major business decisions are made over a good meal and a glass of wine; it's even more amazing how much that food and that wine can affect the decision made. To sway things in your favor, serve a great meal.

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To try and list all the things there are to do in Sao Paulo in a single article would be like trying to give you the phone number for every human on Earth in a five minute speech. What we can do, however, is give you somewhat of an overview, as well as some of the more interesting major events that happen in Sao Paulo. A city as enormous as Sao Paulo with as varied a composition has, of course, a stunning range of possibilities for the interested tourist or business traveler. No matter when, why, and for how long you are in Sao Paulo, you are certain to be able find things to do there. Just look around the city and do some research beforehand and you're sure to have a full and busy schedule for your entire stay in the city.

Sao Paulo also has a lively and very active night life, with a wide assortment of bars, nightclubs, lounges, and discos catering to every sort of taste imaginable, from tango to club dancing and beer to fine wine. No matter what sort of music, dining, cuisine, and food you prefer, Sao Paulo has exactly what you're looking for - again, the best way to prepare is by researching your options. Look into what's out there, and you'll end up doing well and enjoying yourself no matter what it actually is.

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There are plenty of interesting things to see in Sao Paulo, especially if you're interested in architecture - as enormous and post industrial as Sao Paulo is, it is also full of beautiful architecture and amazing buildings, monuments, and other things to see. There is, for instance, the Patio de Colegio, the founding site of the city and a former Jesuit school. There is the Catedral da Se, the metropolitan cathedral, a masterpiece of engineering architecture, and a marking point on any major tourist maps of the city. There are museums, art galleries, gardens, sculpture displays, and a vast host of things to see - the only hard part, really, will be in choosing which to see during your necessarily limited visit to the city.

There is also perhaps the most famous landmark of Sao Paulo, an image emblematic of South American urbanism itself - the massive concrete statue of Christ the Redeemer, arms outstretched, on the mountaintop overlooking the city. The image is instantly familiar to most people, though many Americans and English couldn't place its actual location without difficulty. As a destination, it is a must for the first time visitor to Sao Paulo with a little extra time on his or her hands, so look into the ways you can get to it before your arrival in Brazil.

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Sao Paulo is also full of special events, occasions, festivals, and conventions. If you can plan your visit around one of these, you could potentially have even more to see and do in Sao Paulo than you would have otherwise - an impressive feat, indeed. There are literally thousands of such events every year in Sao Paulo, ranging from small merchants conventions to massive events that have made the city famous around the world. There is, for example, the Bienal de Sao Paulo, a cultural event hosted every two years, a celebration of art in the modern world. Almost one million people attended the last one, and designed to present a wide range of diverse examples under a single theme, it is symbolic in many ways of the city itself.

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One of Sao Paulo's most famous events is actually its world famous gay pride parade - the largest of its kind in the world. In 2006, the parade attracted more than two and a half million people to Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo. It is sanctioned by the city - it is usually opened, in fact, by the mayor of Sao Paulo. It involved a carnival, events, and is certainly a sight you won't see anywhere else. That, of course, is part of what it is to visit Sao Paulo.

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