Canoas fds, Rio Grande do Sul | |
|---|---|
city | |
 Model of F-8 Gloster Meteor plane display in Santos Dumont Park (Praca Santos Dumont) | |
 Flag  Seal | |
 Location in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil | |
  Canoas fds, Rio Grande do Sul Location in Brazil | |
| Coordinates: 29°55′12″S 51°10′48″W / 29.92000°S 51.18000°W | |
| Country | Brazil |
| Region | South |
| State | Rio Grande do Sul |
| Established | June 27, 1939 |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Jairo Jorge |
| Area | |
| • Total | 131.097 km2 (50.6 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 8 m (26 ft) |
| Population (2020 [1]) | |
| • Total | 348,208 |
| • Density | 2,700/km2 (6,900/sq mi) |
| Time zone | UTC-3 (BRT) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-2 (BRST) |
| Website | canoas.rs.gov.br |
Canoas (Portuguese pronunciation: [kaˈnoɐs]), which earned city status in 1939, is a municipality in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. With more than 340,000 inhabitants, it is part of the Porto Alegre conurbation and has the second highest GDP in the state. It is also the third largest city in the state by population. Canoas boasts a strong manufacturing-based economy and is the home to Canoas Air Force Base - ALA3, one of the most important bases of the Brazilian Air Force.
According to the IBGE, Brazil's Geography and Statistics Institute, Canoas currently has no rural areas, but it started as a village of large landowners. The first of them was conquistador Francisco Pinto Bandeira, who received from the Portuguese Crown, in 1740, an area north of the Gravataí River.
History has that 1871 was the beginning of the village of Canoas, when the first section of the railway that would link Porto Alegre to São Leopoldo was inaugurated. Canoas was then part of the municipalities of Gravataí and São Sebastião do Caí. Soon large farms would lose space to small properties.
After obtaining city status, Canoas experienced rapid growth, especially after 1945. At that time, it would be called a cidade-dormitório (Portuguese for 'bedroom city'), because thousands of people would commute to neighboring Porto Alegre to work. However, de-industrialisation in Porto Alegre, the setting-up of numerous manufacturing plants in Canoas and a strong demographic growth have reverted that situation and nowadays Canoas has a per capita GDP higher than Porto Alegre.
