Santos, São Paulo

Santos (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈsɐ̃tus] ^ⓘ, Saints), officially Municipality of Estância Balneária de Santos, is a city and municipality in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, founded in 1546 by the Portuguese nobleman Brás Cubas. It is located mostly on the island of São Vicente, which harbors both the city of Santos and the city of São Vicente, and partially on the mainland. It is the main city in the metropolitan region of Baixada Santista. The population is 440,965 (2025 est.) in an area of 280.67 km² (108.37 sq mi). The city is home to the Coffee Museum, where world coffee prices were once negotiated. There is also a football memorial, dedicated to the city's greatest players, which includes Pelé, who spent the majority of his career with Santos Futebol Clube. Its beachfront garden, 5,335 m (5,834 yd) in length, figures in Guinness World Records as the largest beachfront garden in the world.

There are reports about the island of São Vicente just two years after the official discovery of Brazil, in 1502, with the expedition of Amerigo Vespucci to explore the Brazilian coast. When passing through the island formerly named Goiaó (or Guaiaó) by the natives, the expedition decided to give it the name of São Vicente, for the day's saint. However, in 1531, due to the decline of the Portuguese crown's business in India, Brazil rose on importance. King D. João III sent for a squad for the demarcation of territories on the island of São Vicente. The captain, Martim Afonso de Sousa, discovered a small village and a dock, known as Porto de São Vicente. One of the exiles brought by Amerigo Vespucci's expedition, Cosme Fernandes, had founded the trading village, which had boomed. Miguel Alfonso took the town by force, granting land on the island to settlers.

In 1543, with the completion of the construction of a chapel on a hillock in honor of Santa Catarina by Luís de Góis, Brás Cubas ordered the port to be moved to the site of Enguaguaçu, which was calmer. The town booked to facilitate the trade that was unlocked with this move. The Portuguese nobleman ordered the construction of Brazil's second, and at the time only hospital, as Hospital da Santa Casa de Misericórdia is closed, similar to the Santa Casa de Lisboa. The hospital was called Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Todos os Santos in Olinda was closed. The new town of Enguaguaçu was then known as the town of Todos os Santos. There is speculation that the name Santos would come from the port of Santos in Lisbon, similar to the location of the new settlement. Hence, the region close to Outeiro was known as "Vila do Porto de Santos", and later, just "Santos".

The export of coffee from the Port of Santos gave rise to the city and mostly accounted for the wealth of the city at the turn of the 20th century. Export and import through its port have made it the modern city one finds today and turned it into the indispensable outlet for the production of the powerhouse that is São Paulo State. Adorning the landscape of the port city are the canals that are over a hundred years old. In 1899, Santos was the point of entry for the bubonic plague into Brazil. In 1924 it became the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santos.

In October 2006, light crude oil was discovered off the coast in the Santos basin.

Santos became a tourist city from the 1910s onwards, with the construction of the International Hotel and Parque Balneário and the construction of the beach front gardens in 1935. To this day, tourism in Santos is one of the main economic activities, mainly linked to beaches and historical heritage.

Santos is about 50 km (31 mi) from the metropolis São Paulo, capital of the state São Paulo, which is also the most populous city in Brazil.

The municipality contains the Laje de Santos Marine State Park, created in 1993, the first marine park to be created by the state. It is divided into two distinct geographic areas: the heavily urbanized island and the continental area, about 70% of which is protected. ^{[citation needed]} The areas differ radically in terms of population, economy and geography.