Fortaleza, the Lençóis & the Northeast Interior

The coast was home to Tupi-speaking groups such as the Tupinambá and Tabajara, and to the Tremembé, while the dry interior belonged to Gê-speaking peoples. Far older are the painted rock shelters of the Serra da Capivara, where archaeologists led by Niède Guidon have argued for a very early human presence, a claim still debated.

Maranhão's colonial story began with France: in 1612 French settlers founded Saint-Louis, now São Luís, as part of a colony called France Équinoxiale, but the Portuguese expelled them in 1615. The Dutch held the city briefly in the 1640s. Maranhão was then run as a separate Portuguese state linked directly to Lisbon, and cotton and rice grown by enslaved Africans made São Luís rich by the late 18th century. The region fought hard for independence in 1823, notably at the battle of Jenipapo in Piauí, and Maranhão and Piauí were later shaken by the Balaiada revolt of 1838 to 1841.

Ceará grew slowly as cattle country. Its great droughts, above all that of 1877 to 1879, killed huge numbers and pushed migrants to the Amazon rubber fields. In 1884 Ceará abolished slavery, four years before Brazil as a whole, helped by Fortaleza's raft men who refused to ferry enslaved people to ships. In the interior, the priest Padre Cícero turned Juazeiro do Norte into a pilgrimage town. Piauí moved its capital to the new planned city of Teresina in 1852, and Alcântara in Maranhão became the site of Brazil's rocket launch centre in the 1980s.

The cultures of the three states overlap but differ. Ceará is the land of the jangada, the traditional sailing raft, of bobbin lace, hammock-weaving and forró, and cearenses are famous across Brazil for their humour, with the state producing a steady stream of comedians. The Cariri valley in the far south of the state is a centre of popular Catholicism, and pilgrims still pour into Juazeiro do Norte to honour Padre Cícero.

São Luís has a stronger African imprint. Its great festival is bumba-meu-boi, a June pageant about the death and resurrection of an ox, performed by groups in rival styles with drums, matracas and embroidered costumes; it is recognised as UNESCO intangible heritage. Tambor de crioula is a circle dance to drums, and the Afro-Brazilian religion of Tambor de Mina has old houses in the city. Since the 1970s São Luís has also embraced Jamaican reggae so thoroughly that it calls itself Brazil's reggae capital, with "radiola" sound systems and couples dancing close.

Piauí is quieter, a land of cattle ranches, carnaúba palms and the proud but often mocked identity of Brazil's least-known state. Teresina's ceramic makers and the opal miners of Pedro II keep regional crafts alive. Across the region Catholic saints' days, June festivals and vaquejada — a contest of cowboys pulling bulls down by the tail, now contested by animal-welfare campaigners — mark the calendar.

About 19 million people live in the three states. Fortaleza, with around 2.4 million in the city and roughly four million in its metropolitan area, is one of Brazil's largest cities. São Luís has about a million people and Teresina, the only Northeast state capital away from the coast, well under a million. Juazeiro do Norte, Sobral, Imperatriz, Caxias and Parnaíba are the main secondary towns.

Economically this is one of Brazil's poorer corners, and Maranhão and Piauí rank near the bottom on many social indicators, although poverty has fallen since the 2000s. Fortaleza has a large clothing and footwear industry and a port at Pecém with an industrial zone; wind and solar farms now spread along the coast and through Piauí's interior; and the Carajás railway brings iron ore from Pará to export terminals at São Luís. Soya farming has pushed into the southern cerrado of Maranhão and Piauí, and tourism supports many coastal villages.

Life follows the heat: early starts, a long lunch, evenings on beachfronts and in squares. Drought remains a constant worry in the sertão, eased by cisterns and the transfer canals of the São Francisco river. Land conflicts over quilombola and Indigenous territories, including communities near the Alcântara launch base, are ongoing issues.

Ceará's signature dish is baião de dois, rice and beans cooked together with queijo coalho, bacon and often carne de sol. Paçoca here is savoury, sun-dried beef pounded with manioc flour, and the coast adds peixada cearense (fish stewed with vegetables and coconut milk), lobster, and caranguejada, a crab feast held in Fortaleza's beach bars on Thursday nights. Tapioca crêpes and grilled coalho cheese are everywhere.

Maranhão has its own table. Arroz de cuxá is rice cooked with a sauce of vinagreira leaves (a sour hibiscus), dried shrimp and toasted sesame, and torta de camarão is a shrimp and egg bake. Açaí, of which Maranhão is one of the largest producers, is eaten as a thick purple pulp, and Guaraná Jesus, a sweet pink soda created in São Luís, is a local institution.

Piauí's best-known product is cajuína, a clarified, non-alcoholic cashew-apple juice caramelised by long heating in sealed bottles. Cashew nuts, mangoes and the fruits of the cerrado, such as bacuri and buriti, appear in juices, sweets and ice creams across all three states, and cachaça is the everyday spirit.

On the Ceará coast, Fortaleza has the Praia de Iracema, the Dragão do Mar Center of Art and Culture, the Mercado Central for lace and hammocks, and the lively Praia do Futuro. West of the city lie the kitesurf beaches of Cumbuco and, some 300 kilometres away, Jericoacoara, inside a national park, with the Pedra Furada arch, the sunset dune and the freshwater Lagoa do Paraíso nearby. East of Fortaleza are the red cliffs of Canoa Quebrada, and inland the Ubajara National Park has caves and a cable car.

On the Maranhão side, São Luís's historic centre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a grid of tiled mansions, stepped streets and churches; a ferry crosses the bay to the ruined colonial town of Alcântara. The Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, recently added to the UNESCO World Heritage list, is visited from Barreirinhas, Atins or Santo Amaro. Further south, the Chapada das Mesas near Carolina has waterfalls and table-top mountains.

Between the two states, the Delta do Parnaíba is explored by boat from Parnaíba or Tutóia, past mangroves, dunes and fishing islands. In Piauí's interior, the Serra da Capivara National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site near São Raimundo Nonato, has painted rock shelters, sandstone canyons and the Museu do Homem Americano, while the Sete Cidades National Park has rock formations weathered into strange shapes. Teresina sits where the Poti meets the Parnaíba river.