Salvador

Salvador, city, Brazil

Salvador (săl`vədôr', Port. səlvəthôr`) or Bahia (bəē`yə), formerly São Salvador (souN), city (1991 pop. 2,075,273), capital of Bahia state, E Brazil, a port on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the commercial center of a fertile crescent (the Recôncavo) and a shipping point for the cacao district to the south. Other exports include tobacco, sugar, hardwoods, industrial diamonds, oil, and aluminum. Salvador is also a fashionable tourist center. Despite the abundance of electrical energy, industrialization has proceeded slowly. Food processing, metallurgy, and woodworking are leading industries. The city, built on a peninsula, is divided into two sections connected by graded roads, elevators, and cable cars. As the main center of candomblé, which mixes Catholic and African religious beliefs and dieties, Salvador is known as the "Black Rome."

Founded in 1549, Salvador flourished with the development of sugar plantations and became the leading center of colonial Brazil. The resulting influx of black African slaves made the area notable for its African heritage in music, dance, folk customs, religion, and cuisine. Briefly under Dutch occupation (1624–25), the city was the capital of the Portuguese possessions in America until 1763. It still contains many buildings and fortifications from the colonial period. In the early 19th cent. it was a center of the Brazilian independence movement, and in 1912 was bombarded and heavily damaged by federal forces.

Salvador's intellectual and cultural vitality was manifested by such famous bahianos as Ruy Barbosa, the statesman; Antônio de Castro Alves, the poet; and Jorge Amado, the novelist. Points of interest include a 16th-century cathedral (one of the city's many notable churches), two universities, and agricultural institutes. Salvador has a naval base.

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Salvador

 or Bahia

City (pop., 2002 est.: 2,519,500), port, and capital of Bahia state, northeastern Brazil. Located at the southern tip of a peninsula that separates All Saints Bay from the Atlantic Ocean, it is one of Brazil's oldest cities, founded in 1549 as the Portuguese colonial capital. At the centre of the sugar trade along the bay, it became a prize for privateers, and the Dutch captured it briefly in 1624. Retaken by the Portuguese, it became a major centre for the African slave trade. It has grown continuously since 1940, and its port is one of the country's finest. Important industries include food and tobacco processing, ceramics, and shipbuilding.