Porto Alegre

Porto Alegre began as Porto de Viamão, a landing on the Guaíba used by the inland settlement of Viamão. From 1752 Azorean couples brought to settle the mission lands ceded by the Treaty of Madrid waited here while the borders were surveyed, and many stayed; the place became known as Porto dos Casais, the port of the couples. Its official founding date is 26 March 1772, when a parish was created, and the following year it took the name Nossa Senhora da Madre de Deus de Porto Alegre and replaced Viamão as the capital. Until the mid-19th century its people were mostly Azoreans and the Africans they enslaved.

The Farroupilha Revolution began here, near the Azenha bridge, on 20 September 1835. German and Italian immigrants arrived later in the century, the port and industry grew, and the city grew into the commercial and political centre of the far south. A great flood in 1941 led to the building of a protective wall and drainage system along the historic centre.

From 1989 the city pioneered participatory budgeting, letting residents vote on public investment, and it hosted the first World Social Forums in 2001, 2002 and 2003 and later editions in 2005 and 2010; the budgeting process has been suspended since 2017. In April and May 2024 Brazil's worst floods in more than 80 years inundated large parts of the city, closing the airport for months, and recovery continues.

Porto Alegre is the capital of the gaúcho world. Chimarrão is drunk at home, at work and in the parks, and the Semana Farroupilha each September brings the Acampamento Farroupilha camp to Harmonia Park.

Football divides the city. Grêmio, founded in 1903, and Internacional, founded in 1909, contest the Gre-Nal, one of the fiercest derbies in South America, and households, offices and families split between blue and red. Internacional's Beira-Rio was a 2014 World Cup venue; Grêmio moved to its new Arena in 2012.

The city has a strong cultural life for its size: two major orchestras, the São Pedro Theatre, the art museum and cultural centres around Alfândega Square, and a book fair held there since 1955. Its carnival is counted among the most important in Brazil. Porto Alegre's political tradition — participatory budgeting and the World Social Forum — gave it an international reputation as a laboratory of the left, and politics remains passionate.

The 2022 census counted about 1.33 million people in the city and more than four million in the metropolitan region, which spreads north along the metro line to Canoas, São Leopoldo and Novo Hamburgo. About three-quarters of the city's residents described themselves as white, reflecting its Azorean, German and Italian roots.

Porto Alegre is a city of services, commerce, government, universities and hospitals, several of them regarded as reference institutions in their specialities, while the metropolitan region makes shoes and cars. Residents shop in large malls, take long lunches and fill the parks at weekends, when Redenção and the waterfront are crowded with families, joggers and chimarrão circles.

The 2024 floods remain the defining recent event: the water reached the historic centre and the airport, and debates over flood defences, housing and climate risk continue. Crime, rising living costs and inequality between the central districts and the outskirts are the other everyday concerns.

Churrasco is the city's food. Beef, sausage, chicken and ribs are seasoned with coarse salt and roasted on skewers over embers, at home on weekends and in churrascarias of every kind. Arroz de carreteiro, rice cooked with dried beef, recalls the ox-cart drivers of the pampas, and sagu, made with small pearls of cassava starch, is a classic gaúcho dessert.

Chimarrão, the bitter green mate drunk hot from a gourd through a metal straw, is less a drink than a social ritual, shared in circles and carried in thermos flasks. The Public Market sells mate herb by the kilo along with meat, fish, cheese and spices, and its long-established bars and ice-cream stall are part of the city's routine. The xis, Porto Alegre's take on a cheeseburger pressed flat and loaded with fillings, is the late-night snack of Cidade Baixa.

Immigrant traditions add German breads and cakes, Italian pasta and polenta, and the wines of the Serra Gaúcha, Brazil's most important wine region, served across the city. Beer is popular too, and on warm evenings people gather along the waterfront to watch the sun set over the Guaíba.