St. Louis is a city and the capital of the state of Maranhão, Brazil. It is the only Brazilian city founded by the French, on September, 1612 and was later invaded by the Dutch. Then it was colonized by the Portuguese. Located on the island of Upaon-Acu, in the South Atlantic, between the bays of São Marcos and São José de Ribamar. In 1621, when Brazil was divided into two administrative units - and the state of Maranhão state in Brazil - St. Louis was the capital of the first administrative unit. The capital of Maranhão has a developed industrial sector for big corporations and many areas that have settled in the city due to its privileged geographic position between the North and Northeast regions of the country, its coastline strategically located very close to major shopping importers of products Brazilians like Europe and the United States, allowing fuel economy and reduction in delivery of goods from Brazil through the Port of Itaqui which is the second deepest in the world and one of the busiest, sophisticated and well structured to foreign trade in Brazil. The city is connected to the state through a railway line and also to the neighboring states of Pará, Tocantins and Piauí which facilitates and cheapens agricultural escoação coming from the countryside to the port of Itaqui, and, with the completion the North-South Railway, the city will be linked to all Brazilian regions by rail. On the highway, the island is already served by the BR-135. linking it to the mainland, and air, has the Marechal Cunha Machado International Airport, with capacity to serve more than a million passengers each year and operates with demand already almost saturated by the intense movement of passengers not only from City of St. Louis, but also serve as a gateway for being the largest and busiest airport next to the National Park Maranhenses . The climate is tropical in St. Louis and semiúmido. This is because the city is located near the Intertropical Convergence Zone. The city features lots of palm trees and lots of coastal vegetation. There are small areas of Amazon rainforest that resisted the process of urbanization of the city, all protected by environmental parks. Small rivers are born in the city: among them, the Rio Bacanga is the most important because it is very useful for fishing . In 2010, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics counted the population at 1,014,837, making it the fifteenth largest city in Brazil between 5565 Brazilian municipalities, 13 ° between the capitals, 4th in the Northeast of Brazil and 1 ° of Maranhão. Its area is 831.7 km ², and 157.5656 km ² of the total are in the urban area. [18]. The municipality is part of the Greater Region and North Maranhense Microregion the Urban Agglomeration of St. Louis, located north of the state of Maranhão. The Human Development Index of the municipality is 0.778, compared to the high rate of human desevolvimento of Maranhão

• published: 10 Dec 2012
• views: 14371