"[9] Founded in 1554 by Jesuit priests, the city was the center of the bandeirantes settlers during Colonial Brazil, but it became a relevant economic force only during the Brazilian coffee cycle in the mid-19th century and later consolidated its role as the main national economic hub with industrialization in Brazil in the 20th century, which made the city a cosmopolitan melting pot, home to the largest Arab, Italian, and Japanese diasporas in the world, with ethnic neighborhoods like Bixiga, Bom Retiro, and Liberdade, and people from more than 200 other countries.

[16] The city is the headquarters of B3, the largest stock exchange of Latin America by market capitalization,[17] and has several financial districts, mainly in the areas around Paulista, Faria Lima and Berrini avenues.

[19][20] The metropolis is also home to several of the tallest skyscrapers in Brazil, including the Platina 220, Figueira Altos do Tatuapé, Mirante do Vale, Edifício Itália, Altino Arantes Building, North Tower and many others.

Among the many indigenous names of places, rivers, neighborhoods, etc., that survive today are Tietê, Ipiranga, Tamanduateí, Anhangabaú, Piratininga, Itaquaquecetuba, Cotia, Itapevi, Barueri, Embu-Guaçu, etc.

By the hands of some industrious families, including many immigrants of Italian and Jewish origin, factories began to arise and São Paulo became known for its smoky, foggy air.

[29] In 1932, São Paulo mobilized in its largest civic movement: the Constitutionalist Revolution, when the entire population engaged in the war against the "Provisional Government" of Getúlio Vargas.

[33] São Paulo held a large celebration, in 1954, of the "Fourth Centenary" of the city's founding, when the Ibirapuera Park was inaugurated, many historical books are released and the source of the Tietê River in Salesópolis is discovered.

The total area of the municipality is 1,521.11 square kilometres (587.30 sq mi), according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), being the ninth largest in the state in terms of territorial extension.

[44] No large natural lakes exist in the region, but the Billings and Guarapiranga reservoirs in the city's southern outskirts are used for power generation, water storage and leisure activities, such as sailing.

Non-native species are common, as the mild climate and abundant rainfall permit a multitude of tropical, subtropical and temperate plants to be cultivated, especially the ubiquitous eucalyptus.

Despite the intense pollution, the main rivers of the city, the Tietê and the Pinheiros, shelter several species of animals such as capybaras, hawks, southern lapwings, herons and nutrias.

[116] Research conducted by the University of São Paulo (USP) shows the city's high ethnic diversity: when asked if they are "descendants of foreign immigrants", 81% of the students reported "yes".

Analogous to the BosWash definition, it is one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world, with 32 million inhabitants,[121] behind Tokyo, which includes four contiguous legally defined metropolitan regions and three micro-regions.

[133] According to data from the "Map of Violence 2011", published by the Sangari Institute and the Ministry of Justice, the city had the lowest homicide rate per hundred thousand inhabitants that year among all the state capitals in Brazil.

Due to the large influx of Japanese, German, Spanish, Italian and Arab immigrants etc., the Portuguese idiom spoken in the metropolitan area of São Paulo reflects influences from those languages.

6,000,000 citizens uses the facilities, which provide drugs at no cost and manage an extensive family health program (PSF – Programa de Saúde da Família).

[161] In addition to the legislative process and the work of the secretariats, there are also a number of municipal councils, each dealing with different topics, composed of representatives of the various sectors of organized civil society.

The city is the headquarters of B3, the largest stock exchange of Latin America by market capitalization,[17] and has several financial districts, mainly in the areas around Paulista, Faria Lima and Berrini avenues.

Most of the international luxury brands can be found in the Iguatemi, Cidade Jardim or JK shopping malls or on the streets of Oscar Freire, Lorena or Haddock Lobo in the Jardins district.

[205] Urban growth in São Paulo has followed three patterns since the beginning of the 20th century, according to urban historians: since the late 19th century and until the 1940s, São Paulo was a condensed city in which different social groups lived in a small urban zone separated by type of housing; from the 1940s to the 1980s, São Paulo followed a model of center-periphery social segregation, in which the upper and middle-classes occupied central and modern areas while the poor moved towards precarious, self-built housing in the periphery; and from the 1980s onward, new transformations have brought the social classes closer together in spatial terms, but separated by walls and security technologies that seek to isolate the richer classes in the name of security.

It serves the southwestern cities of Sorocaba, Itapetininga, Itu, Botucatu, Bauru, Marília, Jaú, Avaré, Piraju, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, Ipaussu, Chavantes and Ourinhos (on the border with Paraná State).

It is the seat of the Santos-Jundiaí line which historically transported international immigrants from the Port of Santos to São Paulo and the coffee plantation lands in the Western region of Campinas.

In 1952, Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote his Symphony Number 10 ('Ameríndia') for the 400th anniversary of São Paulo: an allegorical, historical and religious account of the city told through the eyes of its founder José de Anchieta.

They wrote reports to the Portuguese crown about the newly found land, the native peoples and composed poetry and music for the catechism, creating the first written works from the area.

In 1958, the group excelled with the play "Eles não usam black tie" by Gianfrancesco Guarnieri which was the first in the history of the Brazilian drama to feature labor workers as protagonists.

A number of plays represented historic moments, notably "O Rei da Vela", "Galileu Galilei" (1968), "Na Selva das Cidades" (1969) and "Gracias Señor" (1972).

Some of the most important are Renault, Brigadeiro, Zaccaro, Bibi Ferreira, Maria della Costa, Ruth Escobar, Opera, TBC, Imprensa, Oficina, Àgora, Cacilda Becker, Sérgio Cardoso, do Bixiga, and Bandeirantes.

Reflecting the architectural influence of the Versailles Palace in France, the Ipiranga's collection, with approximately 100,000 pieces, comprises works of art, furniture, clothing and appliances that belonged to those who took part in Brazilian history, such as explorers, rulers and freedom fighters.

It houses 1545 works, including paintings by Marc Chagall, Pompeo Batoni, Pierre Gobert and Frans Post, Brazilian modernists Tarsila do Amaral, Di Cavalcanti and Portinari, period furniture, decorative and archeological pieces.

The museum is run by the Department of Artistic Heritage of the Legislative Assembly and has paintings, sculpture, prints, ceramics and photographs, exploring the Brazilian contemporary art.