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	average max. and min. temperatures in °C
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Santos
Climate chart
	average max. and min. temperatures in °C
	precipitation totals in mm
	average max. and min. temperatures in °F
	precipitation totals in inches

Santos
Santos
	— Municipality —
The Municipality of; Estância Balneária de Santos
; Flag	; Seal
	Motto: Patriam Charitatem et Libertatem Docui; (Latin: To the homeland I taught charity and liberty)
	Location in the state of São Paulo and Brazil
	Coordinates: 23°58′S 46°20′W / 23.967°S 46.333°W
Country	Brazil
Region	Southeast
State	São Paulo
Settled	1546
Incorporated	1839
	Government
- Mayor	João Paulo Tavares Papa (PMDB)
	Area
- Municipality	280.3 km2 (108.2 sq mi)
- Metro	2,373 km2 (916.2 sq mi)
Elevation	2 m (7 ft)
	Population (2006)
- Municipality	418,375
- Density	1,494/km2 (3,866/sq mi)
- Metro	1,476,820
- Metro Density	622.3/km2 (1,611.9/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC-3 (UTC-3)
- Summer (DST)	UTC-2 (UTC-2)
Postal Code	11000-000
HDI (2000)	0.871 – high
Website	Santos, São Paulo

This article is about the Brazilian city. For other uses of "Santos", see Santos (disambiguation).

Santos (Saints)( pronunciation (help·info)) is a municipality in the São Paulo state of Brazil, founded in 1546 by the Portuguese nobleman Brás Cubas. It is partially located on the island of São Vicente which harbors both the city of Santos and the city of São Vicente, and partially on the mainland. It is the main city in the metropolitan region of Baixada Santista. As of 2006^[update], its population was estimated at 418,375 (1,476,820 metro area). Santos has the biggest seaport in Latin America, which handled over 72 million tons in 2006; is a significant tourist centre; it has large industrial complexes and shipping centres, which handle a large portion of the world's coffee exports; as well as a number of other Brazilian exports including steel, oil, cars, oranges, bananas and cotton. The city is also home to the Coffee Museum, where, once, coffee prices were negotiated; and a football memorial, dedicated to the city's greatest players, amongst which is Pelé. Its beach's garden, 5.335 km length, figures in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest beach front garden. Santos is home for the famous football club Santos Futebol Clube, where Pelé has played.

The exportation of coffee from the Port of Santos gave rise to the city and mostly accounted for the wealth of the city at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. Exportation and importation through its port have made it the modern city one finds today and turned it into the indispensable outlet for the production of the powerhouse that is São Paulo State. Adorning the landscape of the port city are the canals with over a hundred years of antiquity. In 1899, Santos was the point of entry for the bubonic plague into Brazil.^[2] In 1924, it became the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santos.

In October 2006, light crude oil was discovered off the coast in the Santos basin.^[3]

Santos is about 79 km (49 mi) from the metropolis São Paulo, capital of the state São Paulo.

[edit] Geography

[edit] Physical and environmental aspects

It is divided into two distinct geographic areas: the islands and the continental area. Both areas differ both in terms of population, as in economic terms and geography.

[edit] Island area

It lies on the island of São Vicente (Saint Vincent), whose territory is divided with the neighboring municipality of São Vicente. With an area of 39.4 km ², densely urbanized, houses almost all the inhabitants of the city. It includes a flat area - Plain Costal extension of the State of São Paulo - which has altitudes that rarely go beyond the twenty meters above the sea level, and an area composed of isolated hills called Mass of São Vicente, the former home and endowed an urban illegal occupation with a mix of families characterized by high and low incomes, whose height does not exceed 200 meters above sea level.

About the flat region of the island of St. Vincent, there is almost no vegetation. In the north region of the island - in Alemoa, Chico de Paula and Saboó neighbourhoods - there are still remnants of mangroves. Before the occupation of the area of the island by 'chácaras' - rural residences -, and subsequently by urbanization, there was a vast flooded land covered by mangroves, the native Atlantic Forest, and vegetation near the beach.

We can still find in the hills, vast areas covered by the native Atlantic Forest, despite existing chácaras and banana harvesting farms in the area. The Lagoa da Saudade, a pond located in Morro Nova Cintra, a low altitude hill, is known to host a kind of alligator. It's also a beautiful place to spend quality time with family and friends, since there is a playground, there are kiosks where barbecue and pic nic can be made, and there is plenty of green area to have a good time. The disordered occupation represents both an environmental as well as geological risk: the deforestation leads to frequent landslides of land from the hills, mainly from January to March, the traditional rainy season in the region.

Most rivers in the island have been channelled when engineer Saturnino de Brito designed the system of canals in the city. As examples, we can cite the rivers Dois Rios ("Two Rivers") and Ribeirao dos Soldados ("Rivlet of Soldiers"), which is nowadays the current canal 4, on Ave. Campos Salles.

However, some major water courses have cut the island in the north, such as the Rio de São Jorge (St. George River), which suffers from the problems of pollution and silting due to the occupation of its banks by slums.