Curitiba

With its wide streets and extensive open spaces it has a reputation throughout Brazil as a pleasant place to live, with a higher-than-average quality of life.

Bus station

Avenida Presidente Afonso Camargo

Airport

Aeroporto Afonso Pena

History

Throughout the 17th century the Curitiba area was merely the poor hinterland of the port of Paranaguá. In 1693 the settlement was granted the status of a vila and thereafter grew rapidly, thanks mainly to its proximity to the plateau between the Serra Geral and the Serra do Mar - a natural corridor along which cattle from Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina were driven to the markets and trading centers in the south-east. In 1853 Curitiba became capital of the newly established province of Paraná, which hitherto had belonged to São Paulo.