Florianopolis tourist information

Florianópolis (also known as Floripa) is the capital city of Santa Catarina State in southern Brazil. It is comprised of one main island, the Island of Santa Catarina, one continental part and the surrounding small isles. It has a population of 386,913 (2004/IBGE). Its metropolitan area has a population of about 800,000 inhabitants.

It is surrounded by smaller islands with forts, which protected ships in the 17th century. Most of the population lives on the island's northern half. The southern half is more isolated and less developed. Although originally settled by the Portuguese (from the Archipelago of Azores), the city has a strong German and Italian influence, like the rest of the state. Florianopolis is a popular destination for South American tourists, because of its location and white sand beaches.

There are about 42 well known beaches on Santa Catarina island, but more than 100 in all. The most well-known beaches, from North to South, are:

* Jurerê - Very developed and organized; it has many large houses in private condominiums. * Brava - A quite small beach with wild waves (Brava means angry in portuguese), surrounded by buildings. Very popular specially in the summer among surfers and young people. * Canasvieiras - Popular among Argentinians and Uruguayans in the high season. * Ingleses - A family beach named after the survivors of an English shipwreck who formed a colony there, nowadays a thriving resort town. * Santinho - Has a well-known resort and 5,000 year old stoneworks can be observed at the rocky headland at the North end of the beach, where stoneage tribes sharpened arrowheads and other tools. * Moçambique - Part of the Rio Vermelho forestry reserve, popular with surfers, shelves steeply at high tide, there's a campsite within the reserve. It is the lengthiest beach in the city with more than 12km (about 8 miles) of sand. * Mole - Known for its soft, ankle-deep sand ("mole", [m'óli] means soft in Portuguese), this is where the local crowd come to be seen. Lots of surfers, bars, coconut stalls and places to hire beach equipment. Separated from Lagoa da Conceição by a narrow isthmus of cliffs. * Joaquina - Famous as a location for one of the twelve *ASP World Tour tournaments and also for its sand dunes where sandboarding is practised. * Armação - Armação means trap and this is where Azorean whalers would begin driving South Atlantic Right whales towards the next, dead-end beach for slaughter. Nowadays it is a picturesque fishing village. * Matadeiro - A natural bay, one beach South of Armação, the name means "the killing place" and this is where Atlantic Right whales were beached and slaughtered - there are many whalebones still around today. The beach can only be reached by foot.

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