São Luís Island also known as Upaon-açu Island (officially) or Maranhão Island is an

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in state of

Maranhão Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins and ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

with an area of 1,412.4 km² (545 sq mi), located between the

Baía de São Marcos The Baía de São Marcos is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean in Maranhão state of northeastern Brazil. The bay is an estuary approximately long and up to wide. It receives several rivers, including the Grajaú, Mearim, and Pindaré. The Mearim ...

and the Baía de São José. There are 4 cities located in the island: São Luís, after which the island is named, São José de Ribamar,

Paço do Lumiar Paço do Lumiar is a Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in the states of Brazil, state of Maranhão in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast region of Brazil. The municipality contains part of the Upaon-Açu/Miritiba/Alto Preguiças Enviro ...

, and Raposa. The city of São Luís also covers three more minor islands, Tauá Mirim, Tauá, and Medo. Raposa also has an island. The population of these 4 cities according to the mid 2021 estimate is 1,453,128, up from 1,309,330 at the 2010 Census.Source: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (web) São Luís is the capital of the state. The Island was originally named Upaon-Açu (meaning "Big Island" in the

Tupi language Old Tupi, Ancient Tupi or Classical Tupi (also spelled as Tupí) is an extinct Tupian language which was spoken by the aboriginal Tupi people of Brazil, mostly those who inhabited coastal regions in South and Southeast Brazil. It belongs to ...

) by the Native inhabitants of the island. It is in the top 50 on the

list of islands by population This is a list of islands in the world ordered by population, which includes all islands with more than 100,000 people. For comparison, continental landmasses are also shown, in italics. The population of the world's islands is over 730 million, ap ...

History

São Luis was founded in 1612 by Daniel de la Rivardière, a French officer commissioned by

Henry IV of France Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch ...

to establish a colony in this vicinity. The French colony was expelled in 1615 by the Portuguese, who, in turn, surrendered to the Dutch in 1641. In 1644 the Dutch abandoned the island, when the Portuguese resumed possession, and held the city to the end of their colonial rule in Brazil. The city became the seat of a bishopric in 1679.

Geography

The island of Upaon-Açu is located between two large estuarine systems that are the bays of São Marcos on the right side and São José on the left side in the central region of Golfão Maranhense. The two bays are interconnected in the southwest by the channels of the Strait of Mosquitoes and Strait of Coqueiros (separating the island of Upaon-Açu from the island of Tauá-Mirim). In the São Marcos bay, the watershed of the

Mearim river The Mearim River is a river in Maranhão state of northern Brazil. The river originates in the southern part of Maranhão, and drains north into the Baía de São Marcos, an estuary that also receives the Pindaré and Grajaú rivers, which are ...

and its tributaries flows, while in the São José/Arraial bay the watersheds of the Itapecuru and Munim rivers break. In this region, the amplitude of the tides can exceed seven meters. The region presents numerous streams and tidal channels. Several agents have modeled relief such as those of climatic, hydrological and oceanographic origin, as well as intense wind, marine and fluvial activity, with vegetation characterized by remnants of the Amazonian Forest,

Mangroves A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

and Campo de Perizes, an extensive fluvial plain with predominantly herbaceous, located on the mainland. The climate is characterized as hot, semi-humid, tropical of equatorial zone, with two distinct seasons that go from damp (January to June) the drought (July to December), with average rainfall of 2,200 mm per year. Some of the conservation units of the island are: APA das Reentrancias Maranhenses; APA of Upaon-Açu-Miritiba-Alto Preguiças, APA of Itapiracó; APA of the Maracanã Region; and the Bacanga State Parks, the Jansen Lagoon and the Rangedor. On the Strait of Mosquitoes, there are road and railroad bridges linking the mainland to Upaon-Açu Island: the Marcelino Machado bridge, BR-135, composed of two parallel inlet and outlet bridges (456 and 454 meters in length); the metal bridge Benedito Leite, belonging to the São Luís-Teresina Railway; the duplicate bridge belonging to the Carajás Railway; the metal bridge that supports the Italuís waterway, which carries water from the river Itapecuru to the city of São Luís. There is also a ferry service between São Luís and Alcântara and São Luís International Airport. Also on the island are the Port of Alumar, the Port of Itaqui and the Ponta da Madeira, to which mainly iron, copper and bauxite extracted from Carajás are transported through the

Carajás Railway The Carajás Railway (; EFC or EF-315) is a railway line linking the cities of Parauapebas, Pará and São Luís, Maranhão Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 mill ...

, which also transports soy, fuel, pulp and other products.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sao Luis Island Atlantic islands of Brazil Landforms of Maranhão