Salvador, Brazil

Salvador and Baía de Todos os Santos from space, April 1997

"Morning Street Scene, Bahia, Brazil", about 1900

Salvador (in full, São Salvador da Baía de Todos os Santos, meaning "Holy Savior of the Bay of All Saints") 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 in Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719).

Salvador is located on a peninsula on the Atlantic Ocean coast, next to the Baía de Todos os Santos. It is a major export port and the heart of the Recôncavo Baiano metropolitan region, the region surrounding Todos os Santos bay (which gets its name from the day it was discovered, All Saints day). In city proper, its population was 2.54 million people in 2002, making it today the third largest city in Brazil, a position long held by Belo Horizonte (now demoted to fourth largest). However, Belo Horizonte's metropolitan area has a population of 4 million people, larger than Salvador's.

History

Although the Bay of Todos os Santos 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 Thomé de Souza, the first governador-geral (governor general) of the entire colony 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 Dutch 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 industrialisation. 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.

Salvador has been the birthplace of many noted Brazilians, including musicians such as song-writer Dorival Caymmi, MPB star Gal Costa, and Grammy-winner Gilberto Gil. Gil later went on to be a city council member (vereador) and is currently the Brazilian Minister of Culture. Notable writers associated with the city include Jorge Amado, considered one of Brazil's greatest authors and fabulists, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, and Jean Wyllis, who won Brazil's Big Brother TV show in 2005. The famous Brazilian visual artist Carybé is based in Salvador as well.

Salvador today

The Elevador linking the cidade alta with the cidade baixa.

The city is divided into cidade alta ("upper city") and cidade baixa ("lower city"), with the Cathedral and administrative buildings on higher ground. The city contains many colonial buildings, including the first cathedral in Brazil, and the nation's oldest medical college. It has become famous for the strong presence of African culture. The majority of the population is of African ancestry. It is the center of the Yoruba Candomblé religion and of the martial dance art of capoeira, and has so many churches (over 350, including the 16th century cathedral) that it has been dubbed the "Black Rome". The African influence extends beyond religion to include food, music (from the spiritually influenced afoxé and the community-based blocos afros to the more popular axé and samba), the visual arts, theater, and literature, resulting in a dynamic cultural life.

The city's official literacy rate is 81%. As of the late 1990s, the average monthly income was R$ 1,108.00 (about 447 US dollars). 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 in projects like Bahia Azul and Viver Melhor. The city is one of open sewers which drain into the bay, which has led 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 Itapoã, Pituba and Stella Maris.

The city has several universities:

Universidade Federal da Bahia,
State University of Bahia,
Catholic University of Salvador.
see also List of universities in Brazil

Salvador is noted for its large Carnival celebrations, which including 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.

Salvador is an important tourist destination. 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. The Metro is projected to have 2 lines and will be integrated with bus and by the rail service. The first stage of the metro will be ready in 2006 (or with delays by early 2007).

Salvador has an international airport named Deputado Luís Eduardo Magalhães International Airport which connects with several International destinations, including Lisbon, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Miami, including Amsterdam (seasonal), Frankfurt (seasonal), Tel Aviv (seasonal), Luanda (seasonal), Zurich(seasonal), Paris (seasonal), Milan (Seasonal), and many other cities. Its IATA code is SSA and it is the 6th busiest airport in the country, the first in northeastern Brazil, behind CGH, GRU, BSB, SDU and GIG.