Guía de Brasil

Roraima

For this Brazilian state, location means everything. Roraima is located in Brazil’s far North, cut by the Equator and lies between two South American neighbours, Venezuela and Guyana. It is the 14th largest state in size but includes one of Brazil’s most comprehensive indigenous territories. More than 45% of its territory is made of indigenous areas with their inhabitants setting historical and cultural roots in every corner of the region. With various natural resources, Roraima also has an economically strategic location facing the Caribbean and Central American markets and borders two of Brazil’s largest states: Amazonas and Pará.

Three important ethnic groups form the mixed-race Roraimense: Native Americans, Europeans and Africans mix like ingredients of a great cultural recipe.

Roraima has great tourism potential, especially ecotourism. The natural beauty is the state’s main attraction, in particular Mount Roraima as well as Pedra Pintada archaeological site that has rock paintings dating back to more than four thousand years in human history. The tourist itinerary, extending to two other South American countries also contributes to attracting new visitors to Roraima, which maintains tourism-based commercial relations with these countries, in particular with Venezuela.

In Boa Vista, the only city with more than 100 thousand inhabitants in the state of Roraima, even the sky is different. The city is the only Brazilian capital located in the Northern Hemisphere and it is situated in a savannah region known regionally as ‘lavrado’ in Portuguese, on the western bank of the Branco River. It attracts visitors from all around the world that arrive in order to witness its natural beauty and experience its cultural diversity. Present in the cuisine, the customs and traditions as well as Boa Vista’s architecture, it is possible to witness a rich cultural miscegenation, the result of its Native American population (about 25% of the city’s total population) meeting with European and African immigrants as well as of people from all other regions of Brazil.

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