The Historic Centre is a historic neighborhood located in the western zone of Salvador, Bahia

Salvador, Bahia

Salvador is the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first...

. It was the city's center during the Portuguese

Portuguese people

The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....

 Colonial Period, and was named for the whipping post (Pelourinho means Pillory

Pillory

The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...

) in its central plaza where African slaves received punishment for various infractions, as well as for disciplinary purposes.

The Historic Centre of Salvador da Bahia, frequently called the Pelourinho, is extremely rich in historical monuments dating from the 17th through the 19th centuries. Salvador was the first colonial capital of Brazil and the city is one of the oldest in the New World

New World

The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

 (founded in 1549 by Portuguese

Portuguese people

The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....

 settler

Settler

A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. Settlers are generally people who take up residence on land and cultivate it, as opposed to nomads...

s). It was also the first slave market on the continent, with slaves arriving to work on the sugar plantations.

Nicknamed "Pelô" by residents, this area is in the older part of the upper

Upper

Upper may refer to:* Stimulant drugs* Vamp - the part of a shoe on the top of the foot* The top part of some other object or device...

 city

City

A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...

, or Cidade Alta, of Salvador. It ecompasses several block

City block

A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...

s around the triangular Largo, and it is the location for music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, dining and nightlife

Nightlife

Nightlife is the collective term for any entertainment that is available and more popular from the late evening into the early hours of the morning...

. In the 1990s, a major restoration effort resulted in making the area a highly desirable tourist attraction.

Pelourinho has a place on the national historic register and was named a world cultural centery by UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 in 1985. Easily walkable, Pelo has something to see along every street

Street

A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...

, including churches, cafes, restaurants, shops and the pastel-hued buildings. Police patrol the area to ensure safety.

History

Salvador

Salvador, Bahia

Salvador is the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first...

's Historic Center comprises the colonial city's primitive nucleus and its geographical expansion until the end of the 18th century. From Praça Municipal, open within the dense tropical forest by the first general-governor, Tomé de Souza, in 1549, to largo de Santo Antônio Além do Carmo, battle field where Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian and Dutch

Dutch Brazilian

A Dutch Brazilian is a Brazilian of full or partial Dutch ancestry. Dutch Brazilians are mainly descendants of immigrants from the Netherlands, but there are few who are descendants of Flemish or Afrikaner immigrants....

 soldiers from Companhia das Índias Ocidentais fought in 1638, monument

Monument

A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...

s of civil, religious and military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

 architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 make up a scenery that reveals Salvador's inhabitants art and way of living through the centuries. From Portas de Santa Luzia, which kept the southern boundary of the old city safe, with mud walls, to the thick walls of Fort Santo Antônio Além do Carmo, which guarded the north entrance, Salvador's Historic Center is divided in three areas that can be visited all at once: from Praça Municipal to largo de São Francisco, Pelourinho, and from largo do Carmo to largo de Santo Antônio Além do Carmo.

Many ruined building

Building

In architecture, construction, engineering, real estate development and technology the word building may refer to one of the following:...

s from the Historic Center started to be recuperated in the last thirty years; however, from 1991 on, this work had great impulse with the revitalization of whole blocks of old

Old

- Age :*Old age or, by extension, a description or nickname for someone or something that has endured and become comfortable or widely familiar.- Places :*Old, Hungary*Old, Northamptonshire, England...

 house

House

A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...

s, convent

Convent

A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...

s, and churches. That is why nowadays there are more than 800 building

Building

In architecture, construction, engineering, real estate development and technology the word building may refer to one of the following:...

s with restored frontispieces and interior, among which are the ones adapted to new functions due to the aim of revitalizing the area for cultural purposes.

The area between Praça Municipal and largo de São Francisco chronologically starts from the place chosen by general-governor Tomé de Souza for the construction of the Colonial Government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

 buildings, and in the places occupied by religious brotherhoods that came from Europe in 1549. Praça Municipal was opened because it offered better protection against attacks by natives and corsairs. The Governor

Governor

A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...

's House, the City Hall

City hall

In local government, a city hall, town hall or a municipal building or civic centre, is the chief administrative building of a city...

, and other constructions were initially made of mud wall and covered with straw, but later re-built with stone, bricks, and lime. Nowadays, the visitors' preferred historic buildings are Paço Municipal (completed in the end of the 17th century), Palácio Rio Branco (built where the Governor's House was in 1919), and the Elevador Lacerda (Lacerda Elevator), amplified in the thirties. Towards the north are Santa Casa and Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Misericórdia (Nossa Senhora da Misericórdia Church).

Igreja da Sé's old foundations, put down in 1933, and Palácio Arquiepiscopal, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

's Prime Archbishop's old house and place of work. It is important to point out that the old Sé, and other lour blocks from the colonial and imperial

Empire

The term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....

 periods were put down in the beginning of the century for the construction of the city's cable car stations. A little bit forward, in Terreiro de Jesus, one will find 17th to 19th century constructions. Catedral Basilica, former Igreja dos Jesuítas (Jesuits Church), and churches Ordem Terceira de São Domingos and São Pedro dos Clérigos stand out in Terreiro de Jesus, with its beautiful water fountain in the center.

In the old Medical School Building

Building

In architecture, construction, engineering, real estate development and technology the word building may refer to one of the following:...

, originally occupied by the Jesuit School, are museums Memorial da Medicina (Medicine Memorial), Arqueologia e Etnologia (Archeology and Ethnology), and Afro-Brasileiro (Afro-Brazilian). Largo do Cruzeiro de São Francisco (Cruzeiro de São Francisco Largo), practically an extension of Terreiro de Jesus, has an old cross in the center, and, on the back, the monumental religious set made up of São Franscisco Church and Convent, and Ordem Terceira de São Franscisco Church.

Pelourinho today

Today Pelourinho, located at the heart of the city's historical center, is a big open

Open

- Philosophy :* Openness, term being used to define the basis of how various groups and organizations operate- Mathematics :* Open problem, a well-defined problem with no known solution in science and mathematics...

-air shopping mall

Shopping mall

A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...

 that offers innumerous artistic and music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

al attraction

Attraction

In general, an attraction draws one object towards another one. The term may have the following specific meanings.* In physics, attraction may refer to gravity or to the electromagnetic force* Attractiveness...

s. There is a concentration of bars, restaurants, boutiques, museums, theaters, churches and other monuments of great historical value all located in the Pelourinho area. Now is a revived and colorful Pelourinho, thriving with cultural activities and events, especially the Pelourinho Night & Day project that is performed in the many square

Town square

A town square is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town used for community gatherings. Other names for town square are civic center, city square, urban square, market square, public square, and town green.Most town squares are hardscapes suitable for open markets,...

s and street

Street

A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...

s of the neighborhood.

The program, which is free of charge, brings to the public daily events such as music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

al performance

Performance

A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...

s, dance

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

s, and short plays that please all types of tastes. There are also the practices of the Olodum every Sunday and Tuesday. The Filhos de Ghandi also have practices there in the months that precede Carnival

Carnival

Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...

.

External links

• Pelourinho digital media archive (creative commons
  Creative Commons
  Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
  
  -licensed photos, laser scans, panoramas) from a CyArk
  CyArk
  CyArk is a 501 nonprofit organization located in Oakland, California, United States. The company's website refers to it as a "digital archive of the world’s heritage sites for preservation and education"...
  
  /UNESCO
  UNESCO
  The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
  
  research partnership.
• Bahia Online's Pelourinho page, history and facts about the district.