Pelotas

Sister cities

• Colonia del Sacramento

History

The history of the city begins in June 1758, through a donation that Gomes Freire de Andrade, Count of Bobadela, made to Colonel Thomáz Luiz Osório, giving him land that lay on the banks of the Lagoa dos Patos. In 1763, fleeing the Spanish invasion, many inhabitants of the village Rio Grande sought refuge in the land belonging to Osório. Later, there also came refugees from Colônia do Sacramento, which had been handed over by the Portuguese to the Spanish in 1777. In 1780, the Portuguese rancher José Pinto Martins established himself in Pelotas, with the prosperity of his establishment stimulating the creation of other ranches and growth in the region, creating a population that would define the early city. The Civil Parish of São Francisco de Paula, founded on 7 June 1812, by Father Pedro Pereira de Mesquita, was elevated to the category of town on 7 April 1832. Three years later, in 1835, the town was declared a city, bearing the name Pelotas. In southern Brazil, 'pelota' can refer to a leather raft, and the name of the city comes from the boats made of cockspur coral tree covered with animal skins, used to cross rivers in ranching times. In 1990, the Urban Conurbation of Pelotas was created as a result of a state law. In 2001, it became the Urban Conurbation of Pelotas and Rio Grande, and in 2002 the Urban Conurbation of the South. The goal is to integrate the participating towns and is the embryo of a future metropolitan region including the towns os Arroio do Padre, Capão do Leão, Pelotas, Rio Grande and São José do Norte, which have a total population of around 600,000 inhabitants.

Geography

As it is situated on a plain near the ocean, the urban area lies on a low elevation, being, on average, 7 meters (23 ft) above sea level. The interior of the municipality is on a plateau called Serras de Sudeste (Southeastern Mountain Ranges). Consequently, the altitude in Pelotas' rural area reaches 429 meters (1,407.4 ft) in the Quilombo district. The city stretches to the Laranjal, a bairro on the coast of the Lagoa dos Patos. Beyond the coastal regions Santo Antônio and Valverde, the area also has an even more remote area, the Balneário dos Prazeres (popularly known as Barro Duro, lit. "hard mud"), and Colônia Z-3, a fishing village that primarily explores the art of shrimping. The climate is humid subtropical (Köppen: Cfa), a type found in Southeastern Australia (very homogeneous to Sydney, in terms of average temperatures, albeit cloudier and wetter), without major temperature deviations as found in other cities at the same latitude, elevation and near some ocean, like Brunswick and Savannah, Georgia (USA), and in Shanghai, China (but still considered very high by Brazilian standards), due to the continentality and polar vortex position in those southern cities of the United States and the Chinese city. Summers are warm to hot with regular rainfall. Winters are cool with episodic frosts (about 24 per year) and fog, with no noticeable difference in the amount of monthly rainfall. The hottest month is January, with an average temperature of 23 °C (73.4 °F), and the coldest month is July, with an average temperature of 12 °C (53.6 °F). The wettest month is February, with 145 mm (5.7 in) of precipitation. The average annual temperature in the city is 17.5 °C (63.5 °F) and the average annual precipitation is…

Most-observed species

• Rufous Hornero

  Furnarius rufus (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  1,213
• Great Kiskadee

  Pitangus sulphuratus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  1,182
• Southern Lapwing

  Vanellus chilensis (Molina, 1782) · Aves
  1,050
• Monk Parakeet

  Myiopsitta monachus (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  944
• Eared Dove

  Zenaida auriculata (Des Murs, 1847) · Aves
  922
• Bare-faced Ibis

  Phimosus infuscatus (Lichtenstein, 1823) · Aves
  722
• Southern House-Wren

  Troglodytes musculus J.F.Naumann, 1823 · Aves
  717
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  697