São Luís

The island, called Upaon-Açu, an Indigenous name meaning "big island", was home to Tupinambá people before Europeans arrived. A small Portuguese-Spanish settlement may have existed from 1531, but in 1612 French settlers under Daniel de la Touche, Seigneur de la Ravardière, and François de Razilly founded Saint-Louis as the centre of a colony called France Équinoxiale. Portugal took it in 1615 after the battle of Guaxenduba. The French had little time to build, and whether the French or the Portuguese founded the city is still debated; the engineer Francisco Frias de Mesquita drew up the grid plan that the centre still follows.

The Dutch occupied the city from November 1641 to February 1644 and pillaged its churches. The colony then grew slowly on tobacco, sugar and other crops, amid conflicts that included an uprising led by the Beckman brothers. Growth came with the Company of Grão-Pará and, in the late 18th century, a cotton boom fed by demand from English mills and the disruption of American production during the Revolutionary War. Merchants built the tiled sobrados, the theatre opened in 1817, and the city became known for its poets and writers.

Cotton declined after the American Civil War, and by the end of the 19th century the plantation economy had decayed; textile mills took its place for a time. In the 20th century the deep-water ports of Itaqui and Ponta da Madeira, served by the Carajás railway, revived the economy, and the Alcântara launch centre was built across the bay. In December 1997 the historic centre was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Bumba-meu-boi is the city's defining tradition: a musical pageant about the death and resurrection of an ox, performed through June by groups in rival styles, with drums, matracas — wooden clappers — and costumes heavy with embroidery and beads. The Cultural Complex of Bumba-meu-boi of Maranhão was declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2019.

The African heritage runs deep. Tambor de crioula is a circle dance in which women in bright skirts dance before a row of drums, and Tambor de Mina is the local Afro-Brazilian religion, one of whose two oldest houses, the Casa das Minas, dates from around the 1840s. Since the 1970s the city has also adopted Jamaican reggae so completely that it calls itself Brazil's reggae capital and the "Brazilian Jamaica", with more than 200 radiola sound systems and a reggae museum opened in 2018.

São Luís is called the "Brazilian Athens" for its writers — Gonçalves Dias, Aluísio Azevedo, Josué Montello and Ferreira Gullar among them — and the "city of tiles" for its azulejos. Local legend keeps Ana Jansen, after whom the city's lagoon is named, alive: her carriage, drawn by headless white horses, is said still to roam the dark streets of the old city. Football is popular, though the city's clubs are little known elsewhere in Brazil.

The 2022 census counted about 1.04 million people in the city, the largest in Maranhão; four municipalities share the island, and the wider metropolitan region has more than 1.7 million. About 57 per cent of residents describe themselves as pardo and 16 per cent as Black. Catholics are just over half of the population and evangelicals almost a third.

The ports are the economic engine, exporting iron ore brought by the Carajás railway from Pará along with soya from the interior, and commerce, public administration and tourism employ much of the rest. Inequality is stark: the 2022 census found about a third of the population living in favelas.

The city divides into the old city — the historic centre, Monte Castelo, Anil and other mostly middle-class districts — and the new city, where Renascença, Ponta d'Areia and Calhau hold the high-rises, shopping centres and beachfront bars. Preserving the historic sobrados is a long-running struggle, and urban violence and poor infrastructure are everyday concerns. Evenings are spent at the lagoon, on the beachfront and, in June, at bumba-meu-boi performances across the city.

Maranhão has its own table, and São Luís is its showcase. Arroz de cuxá, rice cooked with a sauce of vinagreira leaves (a sour hibiscus), dried shrimp and toasted sesame, is the signature dish, often served with fried fish. Torta de camarão, a shrimp and egg bake, and peixada, fish stewed with vegetables, are the other regional classics, and shrimp, crab and fish from the bay appear on most menus.

Açaí is eaten as a thick purple pulp, and fruits of the region such as bacuri and buriti go into juices, sweets and ice creams. Guaraná Jesus, a sweet pink soda made in São Luís and named after the pharmacist who formulated it rather than any saint, is very popular across Maranhão. Cachaça is the everyday spirit.

The bars and restaurants around the Lagoa da Jansen and along Avenida Litorânea at Calhau are the busiest places to eat, especially in the evening, while the historic centre has regional restaurants in old sobrados. During the June festivities, regional snacks and sweets are sold late into the night wherever the bumba-meu-boi groups perform.