24 Facts About Porto Alegre

Porto Alegre was founded in 1769 by Manuel Jorge Gomes de Sepulveda, who used the pseudonym Jose Marcelino de Figueiredo to hide his identity; but the official date is 1772 with the act signed by immigrants from the Azores, Portugal.

In recent years, Porto Alegre hosted the World Social Forum, an initiative of several non-government organizations.

Porto Alegre is the birthplace of great writers, intellectuals, artists, politicians, and episodes that marked the history of Brazil.

In 1985, the people of Porto Alegre joined the movement for free elections and one of the largest demonstrations took place in the city.

Porto Alegre is one of the wealthiest cities in Latin America and one of the most diverse.

Related searches

City of Porto Alegre is located at the northern end of the large coastal lagoon, Lagoa dos Patos in southeastern Brazil.

Porto Alegre has a long coastline on the Guaiba Lake, and its topography is punctuated by 40 hills.

The climate of Porto Alegre is very affected by El Nino phenomenon, with flooding in some neighborhoods of the city, especially in the islands in the Lake Guaiba.

Lami Jose Lutzenberger Biological Reserve was established in 1975 in the Lami neighborhood of Porto Alegre, named after the local agronomist and environmentalist Jose Lutzenberger.

The program will be carried out by the Municipal Department of Management and Strategic Support and will focus on improving water quality in Guaiba Lake and the Cavalhada River, developing urban infrastructure to reduce flood risk along the Cavalhada River, improving the environmental management in the Municipality of Porto Alegre, and promoting efficient municipal water, sanitation and storm drainage services.

Porto Alegre is mostly composed of Brazilians of European descent.

Porto Alegre was composed mainly of Azoreans and their African slaves until the first half of the 19th century.

Feature of public administration in Porto Alegre is the adoption of a system of popular participation in the definition of public investment, called the Participatory Budget.

Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre has occurred annually, starting with a series of neighborhood, regional, and citywide assemblies, where residents and elected budget delegates identify spending priorities and vote on which priorities to implement.

The Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre, directed to the production of shoes and to petrochemical industries, as well as services.

Porto Alegre will add 60 engineers to its ranks who will design RFID, digital media and wireless communication chips for its fabrication facility now ramping up for production.

Porto Alegre was one of the first cities in Brazil to develop a recycling program and has been acknowledged as having the best management practices in the country.

Porto Alegre Carnival began in the 18th century with the entrudo, a prank brought over by the Portuguese from the Azores, whereby people threw flour, water, and "limao de cheiro" missiles at each other.

The corso, a parade of floats down Porto Alegre's streets, was a celebration enjoyed by the more well-to-do of the city's inhabitants.

Porto Alegre has a rapid transit system operated by Trensurb, which links downtown Porto Alegre to its northern neighborhoods and to cities to the north of the metropolitan area, as Canoas, Esteio, Sapucaia do Sul, Sao Leopoldo and Novo Hamburgo.

Metro system inside Porto Alegre only is currently planned and it is already subject of much publicity and speculation.

Nonetheless, when coming from west, both highways bond in the neighbor municipality of Eldorado do Sul, running mostly jointly within the borders of Porto Alegre, only coming to separate at the very interchange to Canoas.

Porto Alegre has mini-buses from and to all the main neighborhoods in the city, with sitting-only transport and the possibility to hop on and off at any point but higher fares.

Porto Alegre was one of the host cities of the 2014 FIFA World Cup held in Brazil.