Recife metropolitan area

Recife Metropolitan Area
—  Metro Area  —
Nickname(s): RMR
Country	Brazil
Region	Northeast
State	Pernambuco
Founded as Metro	June 8, 1973
Recife as Capital	1837
Area
• Metro	2,768.9 km2 (1,069.5 sq mi)
Population (2009)
• Metro	3,768,902
• Metro density	1,361.1/km2 (3,522.2/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC-3 (UTC-3)
HDI (2000)	0.78 – low

Recife Metropolitan Area is the largest urban metropolitan area of the Northeast/North regions and the fifth in Brazil with 3,768,902 inhabitants in 2008.Is among with another large cities the first nine established metropolitan regions in Brazil (created by federal supplementary law 14/73 of 8 June 1973). It has one important international airport, two important internationals ports (Suape and Recife), one integrated metro-bus service, many Universities, Hospitals, Museums, Theatres, Historic Monuments, Shopping centers, international Hotels and a large industrial Cluster. Its now passing through a time of economic euphoria in the early construction in the Suape port of a Petrobras refinery, a petrochemical pole and the largest ship builder in South America.I ts area of influence (4th largest in Brazil) covers the entire states of Pernambuco, Paraíba, Alagoas in addition with the interior of the states of Rio Grande do Norte, Piauí, Maranhão, Ceará and Bahia. Its main city is Recife with 1.56 millions inhabitants, capital of Pernambuco.

Cities

According with IBGE is formed by 14 municipalities:

City	Joint in	Legislation	Area (km²)	Population (2009)	IDH (2000)	GDP (R$ x1000 - 2007).	GDP PC (R$ 2007)
Recife	8 June 1973	LCF 14/73	217,494	1.561.659	0,797	20.718.107	13.510
Jaboatão dos Guararapes	8 June 1973	LCF 14/73	256,073	687.688	0,777	5.578.363	8.384
Olinda	8 June 1973	LCF 14/73	43,548	397.268	0,792	2.179.183	5.567
Paulista	8 June 1973	LCF 14/73	93,518	319.373	0,799	1.367.111	4.449
Abreu e Lima	6 January 1994	LCE 10/94	125,991	96.266	0,730	567.474	6.154
Igarassu	8 June 1973	LCF 14/73	305,565	100.191	0,719	734.430	7.834
Camaragibe	6 January 1994	LCE 10/94	55,083	143.210	0,747	492.113	3.608
Cabo de Santo Agostinho	8 June 1973	LCF 14/73	447,875	171.583	0,707	2.813.188	17.244
São Lourenço da Mata	8 June 1973	LCF 14/73	264,346	99.945	0,707	310.748	3.261
Araçoiaba	1 January 1997	City date	96,381	17.484	0,637	48.939	2.962
Itamaracá	8 June 1973	LCF 14/73	65,411	18.658	0,743	76.266	4.340
Ipojuca	6 January 1994	LCE 10/94	527,317	75.512	0,658	5.354.635	76.418
Moreno	8 June 1973	LCF 14/73	195,603	55.659	0,693	207.508	3.928
Itapissuma	6 January 1994	LCE 10/94	74,249	24.406	0,695	424.898	18.593
Total			2768,955	3.768.902	0,780	40.872.963	10.845
Pernambuco			98.938	8.810.256	0.705 (0.718 2005)	62.255.687	7.337

Transports

International Airport

Guararapes International Airport (REC).

Guararapes International Airport, also known as Gilberto Freyre International Airport, is the airport serving Recife, has been open in its newest structure since July 2004 and has 52,000 square meters of area. It has the longest runway in the Northeast Region, at 3,305 meters. Its extension permits operations with jumbo jets, such as the Boeing 747-400, which can carry 290 passengers and 62 tons of cargo or Airbus A330/340. Guararapes had its capacity expanded from 1.5 million to 5 million passengers a year which was almost fulfilled in 2008 with more than 4.6 million passengers ( there are also plans to increase to 7.2m ). Current domestic destinations include most major cities in Brazil,and the state cities of Fernando de Noronha and Petrolina; there are also international flights to Lisbon, Paris, Miami, Atlanta, Buenos Aires and Milan .The main airlines operating in Recife Airport include TAM, Gol Transportes Aéreos, TAP Portugal, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, Livingston Energy Flight, Blue Panorama Airlines, Webjet, TRIP Linhas Aéreas, OceanAir, Flex Linhas Aéreas and Azul Brazilian Airlines.

Ports

Suape port It is located in the city of Ipojuca, inside the metropolitan region. Suape serves ships 365 days a year without any restrictions with regard to tidal schedules. To assist in the docking operation of the ships, the port offers a monitoring system and laser ship docking system that enables effective, secure control and upholds the same technical standards as the most important ports across the globe. The port moves over 8.4 million tons of cargo a year. The liquid granary (petroleum by-products, chemical products, ethanol, vegetable oils, etc.) constitutes more than 80% of the movement. The port can serve ships of up to 170,000 tpb and operational draft of 14.50 m. With 27 km² of backport, the internal and external ports offer the necessary conditions for serving large ships. The access canal has 5,000 m of extension, 300 m in width and 16.5 m in length.More than 95 Companies from almost all Industries are already installed in Suape which includes a Petrobras Refinary, the largest Ship Builder in South American and a large Petrochemical Company as many others.

Metropolitan Metro of Recife.

Port of Recife It is located in the city of Recife. Road access to Port of Recife is accomplished, mainly, through the federal highways BR-232 (linking the interior of the state) and BR-101 (linking to other States to the north and the south of the State of Pernambuco). The main producing and consuming centers of the interior of the state and of the rest of the Northeast, are linked to Port by paved highways. Three trunks of the Railways of Companhia Ferroviária do Nordeste (CFN), Northeastern Railway Company, serve the main areas of production in the state, tying the Port of Recife respectively: to the capitals of the states placed to the north of Pernambuco (north log); to the cities of the interior of the State (log west); and to the cities of Maceió and Aracaju (south log).

Metro Since 1998, the Metro expansion is being built. When ready, Recife Metro will become the second largest in Brazil, after São Paulo. It already reaches from Recife central station to Jaboatão, Timbi (Camaragibe) and Mall (Shopping Recife).

This system also integrates with several bus lines connected to the bus/metro integration terminals, such as Barro and Joana Bezerra stations. It is possible to ride the metro and the connected bus line by purchasing one ticket only. Since March of 2009, Recife Metro has finished one more phase of expansion. The system counts now with 28 station (11 integrated with buses) and 39.5 kilometers long. This system for now, crisscrosses 4 cities of the metro area: Recife, Jaboatao, Camaragibe and Cabo (Cabo, just by diesel train).

Fleet

According with Detran-PE (Transportation State Bureau Administrator) in 2009, just the city of Recife has a total fleet of over 464 thousands motor vehicles in its streets. 54.335 Cargo vehicles, 318.520 passengers vehicles, 72.719 motorbikes, 14.142 as other and 4.855 buses (between private and public). Those buses, transports almost two million passengers daily in the metropolitan area, distributed between 17 local Bus companies.

Highways

Recife metropolitan area is crisscrossed by 3 main Federal highways:

• BR-101 North - Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte
• BR-101 South - Alagoas, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul
• BR-232 West - Gravatá, Caruaru, Belo Jardim, Arcoverde, Salgueiro and Parnamirim
• BR-408 NW - Carpina, Timbaúba and Campina Grande

• State Highways PE-xxx: 001/007/009/015/020/022/027/028/035/037/038/041/042/045/060/096

Tourism

Main articles: Pernambuco Museums and Pernambuco Beaches

The celebrations, holidays and other events are numerous during the whole year. The best place to celebrate the New Yearis in Salvador of Bahia then some people go to the beach, Praia de Boa Viagem(A bit dirty) and in Old Recife. The carnival of Recife and Olinda (which has its historic town center considered one of the brazilian world heritage site by UNESCO in 1982) begins many weeks ahead in December with innumerable balls and processions. In the city, the carnival festivities begin in December, as locals begin preparing for the official Carnival, which starts the weeks before Ash Wednesday. Carnival officially starts with the Galo da Madrugada, a party in Downtown Recife attracting many people from several States of Brazil, and other parts of the world. Recife got well Internationals established 2 and 3 Stars Hotels as well Pousadas (traditional Bed & breakfast) and Apart-Hotels totaling more than 5,500 bedrooms and this number goes to over than 10,000 in Recife metropolitan area. Most of all with large experience in reception of Nationals and Internationals tourists and a few ones with Sports complex, Garbage Mount, Mud of Sertão, Baby Pools, etc.

Recife is one of the most cultural sites in Brazil, and is the home of several artists, musicians and writers. It is also home to the frevo, a regional dance and music, typical in the carnival, and the Mangue Beat, a type of Brazilian rock with mixture of Maracatu, Ciranda, Rap and other music styles. Just Recife and Olinda together got 5 museums, 3 Art galleries, 2 Orchestra houses,5 Theatres, 1 Opera House and more than 20 Cinemas.

References

See also: Largest Cities of Northeast Region, Brazil