Salvador, Bahia

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Coordinates: 12°58′15″S, 38°30′39″W
Salvador
Salvador and Baía de Todos os Santos (from space, April 1997)
Nickname: Capital da Alegria
Motto: E Assim a Pomba Voltou à Arca
Location of Salvador
Region	Nordeste
State	Bahia
Founded	29 March 1549
Government
- Mayor	João Henrique
Area
- City	706,799 km² (272,896.6 sq mi)
Elevation	8 m (26.2 ft)
Population (2006)
- City	2,711,372
- Density	3,836.1/km² (9,935.5/sq mi)

This article is about the Brazilian city. For other names that include "Salvador", see Salvador and São Salvador.

Salvador (in full, São Salvador da Baía de Todos os Santos, or in literal translation: "Holy Savior of All Saints' Bay") is a city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. The city was for a long time also known as Bahia, and appears under that name (or as Salvador da Bahia, Salvador of Bahia so as to differentiate it from other Brazilian cities of the same name) on many maps and books from before the mid 20th century, including Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719) and Jorge Amado's Gabriela, Cravo e Canela.

1 History
2 Geography
3 Climate
4 Culture
5 Demographics
6 Salvador today
7 Crime
8 Places to visit near Salvador
9 External links

[edit] History

Afro-Brazilians with typical clothes in Salvador, Bahia

Although Baía de Todos os Santos (Todos os Santos Bay) was first encountered by Europeans and christened in 1502, the city of Salvador wasn't founded until 1549 by a fleet of Portuguese settlers headed by Tomé de Sousa, the first Governor-General of Brazil. It quickly became Brazil's main sea port and the first colonial capital of Portuguese Brazil, a center of the sugar industry and the slave trade. The city became the seat of the first Catholic bishop of Brazil in 1552, and is still an ecclesiastical power center of Brazilian Catholicism. Its cathedral, still standing today, was completed in 1572. By 1583, there were 1,600 people residing in the city, and it quickly grew into one of the largest cities in the New World, surpassing any colonial American city at the time of the American Revolution in 1776.

Salvador was the capital city of the Portuguese viceroyalty of Grão-Pará and its province of Bahia de Todos os Santos. The Netherlands captured and sacked the city in May of 1624, and held it along with other NE ports until it was re-taken by the Portuguese in April of the following year.

Salvador was the first capital of Brazil and remained so until 1763, when it was succeeded by Rio de Janeiro, the new economic power center of that era. The city became a base for the Brazilian independence movement and was attacked by Portuguese troops in 1812, before being officially liberated on July 2, 1823. It settled into graceful decline over the next 150 years, out of the mainstream of Brazilian industrialization. It remains, however, a national cultural and tourist center.

By 1948 the city had some 340,000 people, and was already Brazil's fourth largest city. By 1991 the population was 2.08 million.

In the 1990s, a major city project cleaned up and restored the old downtown area, the Pelourinho, or Centro Historico ("Historical Center").

Salvador has been the birthplace of many noted Brazilians, including musicians such as song-writer Dorival Caymmi, Música Popular Brasileira (MPB or Brazilian Popular Music) star Gal Costa, and Grammy Award winner Gilberto Gil. Gil later went on to be a city council member (vereador) and is currently Brazil's Brazilian Minister of Culture. Also internationally recognized are the city's Blocos Afros, such as Olodum, Ara Ketu, and Ilê Aiyê. Notable writers associated with Salvador include Jorge Amado, considered one of Brazil's greatest authors and fabulists, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, and the 2005 Big Brother Brazil 5 winner Jean Wyllys. The famous Brazilian visual artist Carybé is based in Salvador as well.

[edit] Geography

Salvador is located on a small, roughly triangular peninsula that separates Todos os Santos Bay from the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The bay, which gets its name from having been discovered on All Saints' Day forms a superb natural harbor, and Salvador is a major export port, lying at the heart of the Recôncavo Baiano, a rich agricultural and industrial region encompassing the northern portion of coastal Bahia. The local terrain is diverse ranging from flat to rolling to hills and low mountains. A particularly notable feature is the escarpment that divides Salvador into the Cidade Alta ("Upper Town") and the Cidade Baixa ("Lower Town"), the former some 85m (275ft) above the latter [1], with the city's famous cathedral and most administrative buildings standing on the higher ground. A gigantic elevator (the first installed in Brazil), known as Elevador Lacerda has connected the two sections since 1873, having since undergone several upgrades.

The coastline is equally diverse, featuring sandy beaches, sea cliffs, mangrove swamps, and a number of islands, the largest of which, Itaparica, includes a famous resort area.

[edit] Climate

Salvador has a typical tropical climate, with warm to hot temperatures and high relative humidity all throughout the year. However, these conditions are relieved by a near absence of extreme temperatures and pleasant trade winds blowing from the ocean. March is the warmest month, with mean maxima of 30°C (86°F) and minima of 24°C (75°F); July experiences the coolest temperatures, with means of 26°C (79°F) and 21°C (70°F). The absolute maximum and minimum are respectively 38°C (100°F) and 12°C (54°F). Unlike in the area further inland (known as the Sertão), rainfall in Salvador is quite abundant, with a total yearly average of 201cm (83"), being heaviest in May at 33cm (12.8") and generally tapering off until reaching a nadir of 11cm (4.4") in January. Tropical cyclones and tornadoes are unknown in the area. [2][3]

[edit] Culture

**Historic Centre of Salvador de Bahia**^a
**UNESCO World Heritage Site**

State Party	Brazil
Type	Cultural
Criteria	iv, vi
Identification	#309
Region^b	Latin America and the Caribbean
Inscription History
Formal Inscription:	1985 9th Session
a Name as officially inscribed on the WH List b As classified officially by UNESCO

Salvador is a very culturally rich city, being a bastion of Afro-Brazilian culture. Consequently, syncretic (i.e., hybrid Roman Catholic and African) Yoruba derived religions such as Candomblé, and other African derived religions, such as the Congolese/Angolan-inflected Umbanda, and Quimbanda, are practiced by much of the population, in most cases in conjunction with Roman Catholicism. Native musical forms include the spiritually influenced afoxé, the community-based blocos afros, the folk forró, and the more popular axé music, reggae and samba as well.

Salvador's visual arts, theater, and literature have also gained a worldwide following, with Jorge Amado being a renowned author whose novels featured local themes. The local cuisine, spicy and based on seafood, strongly relies on typically West African ingredients and techniques, and is much appreciated throughout Brazil. Capoeira, a unique form of martial arts, combining agile dance moves with unarmed combat techniques, is also very popular in the area (85% of the population) and largely of African origin. Salvador is the home to several major branches of capoeira practice. Even the local Portuguese is laden with African words and intonations, and sounds very "relaxed," especially when compared to European Portuguese. In part because of its historical importance as a site of African Diasporic cultural production and practice, Salvador is quickly becoming a popular "heritage" destination for African Americans.

The city contains many fine colonial buildings, its Historic Center having been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. There are found many magnificent old houses, the nation's first medical school, and, even more important, Brazil's oldest cathedral (1572) and additional churches, many featuring significant works of art. The great number of Catholic houses of worship in the city has earned it the nickname of "Black Rome."

Salvador is also home to the oldest, continuous gay rights and human rights organization in Brazil, the Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB). Established by Dr. Luiz Mott in 1980 and currently headed by Marcelo Cerqueira, GGB has played a central role in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality movement both in Bahia and across Brazil, and has helped to educate the local population on HIV and AIDS prevention and human rights abuses. Salvador's gay pride parade is now one of the largest in Brazil.

[edit] Demographics

The municipality (município) of Salvador had a population of 2.65 million people as of 2006, making it the third largest in Brazil, behind São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro Salvador is the 3rd largest city in Brazil. The Salvador Metropolitan Region as a whole is home to approximately 3.35 million people. It has the highest proportion of people of African descent in the country, and one of the largest black populations in the Western Hemisphere.

[edit] Salvador today

The city's official literacy rate is 81%. As of the late 1990s, the average monthly income was R$ 1,108.00 (about US$ 447). Sanitation is a problem in the poorer neighborhoods. About 1/3 of the residents have neither sewage hookups nor septic tanks but the Bahian state government is working hard to rectify this problem through projects like Bahia Azul ("Blue Bay") and Viver Melhor ("Living Better"). The city has a few open sewers which drain into the sea, leading many tourist guides to advise tourists not to swim in the water on the bay side of the city, such as Porto da Barra, and instead suggesting beaches on the Atlantic Ocean side of the peninsula such as Itapuã, Pituba and Stella Maris.

The city has several universities:

Universidade Federal da Bahia - UFBA,
Universidade do Estado da Bahia - UNEB (State University of Bahia),
Universidade Católica do Salvador - UCSal (Catholic University of Salvador).
UNIFACS
Faculdade de Tecnologia e Ciências (College of Technology and Science)
see also List of universities in Brazil

Salvador is noted for its large Carnival celebrations, which include a strong Afro-Brazilian musical and spiritual component.

Esporte Clube Bahia and Esporte Clube Vitória are Salvador's main soccer teams. EC Bahia has won a national title twice: Brazil's Cup (equivalent to the championship of the Brazilian league prior to 1971) in 1959 and the championship of the Brazilian League in 1988. EC Vitoria, on the other side, has never won a national title and was only once the runner up in the Brazilian League in 1993. As of 2006, Esporte Clube Bahia still competing in the Brazilian Third Division, while Esporte Clube Vitória qualified in 2007 to challenge in the Second Division.

Salvador is an important tourist destination and is the second most popular destination in Brazil. Chief among the points of interest are its famous Pelourinho (named after the colonial pillories that once stood there) district, its magnificent historic churches, and its beaches.

Ford Motor Company has a plant in the Salvador Metropolitan Area, in the city of Camaçari, assembling the Ford Courier, Ford EcoSport and Ford Fiesta.

Salvador currently has a Metro System under construction (although recent visits suggest that construction has been severely delayed). The Metro is projected to have two lines and will be integrated with bus and rail services. The first stage of the metro was to have been ready in 2006 (or, with delays, by early 2007).

Salvador has an international airport named Deputado Luís Eduardo Magalhães International Airport. In addition to domestic and regional services, it has non-stop flights to Lisbon, Madrid, Frankfurt, Montevideo, Asunción and Miami. Its IATA airport code is SSA and it is the sixth busiest airport in the country, the first in northeastern Brazil, behind Congonhas International, Guarulhos International, Juscelino Kubitschek International, Santos Dumont Regional and Galeão International.

[edit] Crime

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Central and Downtown Salvador is one of the safest city areas among the major cities in Brazil (and also one of the safest in Latin America), with a rate of only 12 murders per 100,000 inhabitants (almost four times less than in the city of Sao Paulo, for example). However the Salvador Metro region's murder rate is more than 40 per 100,000, which is one of the highest in Brazil.

Tourists must be aware, though, that they will be the preferential targets of the pick pockets and thieves, and hence should dress like the locals do. During daylight, walking alone should not be a problem, especially in the upper class neighbourhoods and tourists' spots. At night, walking in groups or using a car is the best thing to do.

[edit] Places to visit near Salvador

Interesting places to visit near Salvador include

the island of Itaparica - can be visited either by a car-ferry, or a smaller foot-passenger ferry which leaves from near the Mercado Modelo near the Lacerda Elevator.
Linha Verde, or "green line" of towns and cities, with exquisite beaches, north of Salvador heading towards Sergipe state
Cachoeira - 3 hours by bus: a great centre of Candomblé with a Pousada (hotel) in the convent
Lençóis and the Chapada Diamantina National Park - 7 hours by bus
Morro de São Paulo - an exotic island which can be reached by ferry from Salvador (1 hr), by plane, or by bus to Valença and then by 'Rapido' ('fast') speedboat or smaller ferry.
Bom Jesus da Lapa - 12 hours by bus: a great centre of Catholic pilgrins.