São Luís is a city native of northeastern Brazil and the capital of the Brazilian State of Maranhão. It is located in the homonymous island (Upaon-Açu, in the old denomination given by Indian Tupinambás, that there inhabited, and that means " Big " Island), in Atlântico Sul, between São Marcos' bays and São José of Ribamar. It possesses 959.124 inhabitants (estimate for 2004}, and it is the main city of the Big Metropolitan Area São Luís. Ravardière, on September 8, 1612. The name " São Luís " is due to a homage rendered Luís XIII from France, king-boy from France. Frenches formed an alliance with the Indians in the resistance to the Portuguese and, only 3 years then, in November of 1615, it came back to the Portuguese domain, under the command of Jerônimo of Albuquerque, that became the first captain-mor of Maranhão and he/she gave its name to one of the main avenues of the city. São Luís was also under the Dutch control in the period from 1641 to 1644. Only later of those attacks the colonial government decided to found the State of Maranhão and Grain-Pará, independent of the rest of the country. In that time, the economy was based on the plantation, and later export, of sugar-cane, cocoa and tobacco. Conflicts among the elites for economic reasons would take to the Revolt of Beckman. For the idos of 1860, with the interruption of the cotton production for United States, that faced the War of the Secession, the road was open to Brazil to supply that raw material to England. The cotton production grew and the city was modernized; it is big the flow of European, mainly religious persons, committed with the education of the population. Works are inaugurated, as the nets of water and sewer. The city gets to be the third more populous city of the country, behind Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, but the cotton trade enters in decadence at the end of the century XIX and the city looks for other ways to stay. The city was tumbled by UNESCO as Cultural Patrimony of the Humanity, in 1997. It possesses a colonial architectural acervo evaluated in about 3500 buildings, distributed for more than 220 hectares of historical center, being great part of them sobradões with observatories, many covered with precious Portuguese tiles. Several buildings were recuperated; the Municipal City hall, for example, works in the Palace la Ravardiére, construction of 1689. Among the tourist points, they are Cafuá of the Graces (Museum of the Black), the Museum of Sacred Art, Solar São Luís, Covento of the Graces, the Palace of the Lions (headquarters of the State Government), the Museum of Visual Arts and the Teatro Arthur Azevedo. Climate THE climate of São Luís is tropical, hot and semi-húmido the minimum temperature in most of the year is above 25 degrees and the maxim is generally above 30 degrees, it possesses two different stations: the station evaporates, of July to December, and the rainy station, of January to June. The medium pluviométrica is of 1953 mm. Cultura Na cultura local, São Luís tem manifestações muito fortes como o bumba-meu-boi, festa de tradição afro-indígena que aflora na cidade nas festas do mês de junho. Besides, it possesses the " Drum of Creole ", " Cacuriá ", the " Drum of Mine " (Afro-Brazilian religion, that has at Minas Jeje's Big House - founded in the middle of the century XIX - its more important yard, or Querebetan). These manifestations happen in the period of the of June parties. In the carnival, the tradition of São Luís is a strong street carnival. Where the popular blocks of they mix to the brincantes and the traditional bands. Epithets Atenas Brasileira: THE city is also called Brazilian Athens (for the amount of writers and poets that it possessed in the century XIX and for the place to be considered to have the Portuguese better spoken of Brazil). São Luís also went the city where to it was written and published the first grammar of Brazil, for Reis' writer Sotero. Island of the Love: Attributed in function to the great number of poets that you/they praised the city and for the romantismo that the own art carries. Jamaica Brasileira: Later on it became called by Jamaica Brasileira (because it is the city with the largest number of regueiros of Brazil). The reggae arrived with force at Maranhão as a whole (and mainly in São Luís) in the seventies, and until today it continues strong.