Recife

Sister cities

• Porto
• Chengdu
• Guangzhou
• Macau
• Nantes
• Amsterdam
• Arrecife
• Barcelos

History

Recife began as a collection of fishing shacks, inns and warehouses on the delta between the Capibaribe and Beberibe Rivers in the captaincy of Pernambuco, sometime between 1535 and 1537 in the earliest days of Portuguese colonisation of Terra de Santa Cruz, later called Brazil, on the northeast coast of South America. It was a settlement of colonial fishermen and way station for Portuguese sailors and passing ships. The first documented reference to the settlement with its "arrecife dos navios" (reef of the ships) was in the royal Charter Act of March 12, 1537, establishing Olinda, to the north, as a village, with its port where the Beberibe River meets the sea. Olinda (and Igarassu before it) had been settled in 1536 by Captain General Duarte Coelho, a Portuguese nobleman, proprietor and administrator of the captaincy of Pernambuco. The city is named for the long reef recife running parallel to the shoreline which encloses its harbour. The reef is not as sometimes stated, a coral reef, but a consolidated ancient beach, now as firm and hard as stone. In 1541, Coelho returned from the Kingdom of Portugal with the machinery for an engenho (sugar mill), and with it, his brother-in-law established the first mill named Nossa Senhora da Ajuda (Our Lady of Help), in the floodplain of the Beberibe River at Recife. At that time the banks of the Capibaribe River were covered by sugar cane. Recife was capital of the 17th century New Holland (Dutch Brazil) established by the Dutch West India Company and was called Mauritsstad. The city was eventually recaptured by the Portuguese in 1654, following their victories at the first and second Battle of Guararapes. The Mascate War of 1710–1711 pitted merchants of Recife against those of nearby Olinda.

Geography

It has often been called "The Venice of Brazil". Recife has a tropical forest. Rainforests are characterised by high rainfall, with definitions setting minimum normal annual rainfall between and . The soil can be poor because high rainfall tends to leach out soluble nutrients. There are several common characteristics of tropical rainforest trees. The city of Recife is formed by three islands (Recife, Santo Antônio, and Boa Vista). Between the islands are the rivers Beberibe and Capibaribe. Other rivers are the Jiquiá, Tejipió, Jordão and Pina. Recife has a tropical monsoon climate (Am) under the Köppen climate classification, with warm to hot temperatures and high relative humidity throughout the year. However, these conditions are relieved by pleasant westwardly trade winds blowing in from the ocean. January and February are the warmest months, with mean temperatures ranging from to , with sun. July is the second cloudiest month and experiences the coolest temperatures, with mean temperatures ranging from to . The wettest month is June, receiving an average of of rain. Recife features a short dry season which lasts from October to December. The driest and sunniest month is November, when maximum temperatures hover around and an average of of rain is recorded. }}