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Description
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First
settled by Portuguese of Azorean descent in 1777, Porto
Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul was at a disadvantage
for many years because of its location some distance away from
the sea. From the nineteenth century, with German colonization
and the building of the first railways, the city began to expand
rapidly until becoming the most important city in southern Brazil.
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Situated
on the left bank of the River Guaνba near the port of Porto Alegre,
important for transporting local produce, the Gaucho capital has
a broad-based economy that lays particular emphasis on agriculture
and industry. Agricultural production includes produce such as
plums, peaches, rice and cassava grown on rural smallholdings.
The shoe and leather industries are also important, especially
in Novo Hamburgo in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre.
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If
the capital was disadvantaged in the beginning by its geographical
position, it is now deriving great benefit from it. With the creation
of Mercosul comprising four countries of which two, namely Argentina
and Uruguay, border Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre has almost
taken on the role of capital of the Southern Cone.
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Porto
Alegre is the centre of Brazil's third largest communications
network, the Brazil South Network (Grupo RBS) and one of the foremost
education establishments, the Federal University of Rio Grande
do Sul. One of the city's main tourist-cultural attractions is
the Mαrio Quintana Cultural Centre based in the former Hotel Majestic
where the poet, whose name the Centre bears, lived until 1980,
before his death in 1994. The Cultural Centre comprises auditoria
for both theatre and cinema, libraries and an art gallery as well
as housing a vast collection of material relating to Mαrio Quintana.
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In
the Matriz Square in Porto Alegre is an architectural complex
in the Portuguese baroque style, a legacy of its founders. The
most important buildings are the Sγo Pedro Theatre, which is more
than one hundred and thirty years old, the Metropolitan Cathedral
built in 1929 in the renaissance style, the Public Library, the
Town Hall and Riachuelo Street where the city's bookshops, both
new and second hand, are situated. Not far away is the Gasometer
Factory which used to operate as a thermoelectric plant but is
nowadays an important cultural focus in the city.
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