Aracati () is a city or municipality in the state of

Ceará Ceará (, ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. It is the List of Brazilian states by population, eighth-largest Brazilian State by ...

, in the northeast region of

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. The city was officially founded on April 11, 1747. It is part of the microregion of Litoral de Aracati, which is one of the four microregions that make up the macroregion of

Jaguaribe Jaguaribe is a municipality in the state of Ceará in the Northeast region of Brazil. With an area of , of which is urban, it is located 244 km from Fortaleza, the state capital, and 1,495 km from Brasília, the federal capital. Its population in ...

. It is the birthplace of the revolutionary Eduardo Angelim, the romanticist Adolfo Caminha, the bishop Manuel do Rego Medeiros, the abolitionist

Dragão do Mar Francisco José do Nascimento (April 15, 1839 – March 5, 1914), known as Dragão do Mar (''Sea Dragon''), was an Afro-Brazilian raft fisherman ( ''jangadeiro''), pilot and abolitionist figure, who in 1881 led a strike of his fellow ''jangadeiros ...

, the actor

Emiliano Queiroz Emiliano de Guimarães Queiroz (1 January 1936 – 4 October 2024) was a Brazilian actor, radio personality, screenwriter and director. Life and career Queiroz was born in Aracati, in the state of Ceara, into a family of Portuguese-Dutch des ...

, the classical pianist Jacques Klein and the writer Yury Teodósio. The city center of Aracati was named an important historical site in April 2000 by the

National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage The National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute (, IPHAN) is a heritage register of the federal government of Brazil. It is responsible for the preservation of buildings, monuments, structures, objects and sites, as well as the register an ...

of Brazil. The city has several colonial-period residences, and churches from the 17th and 18th century. The facades of many residential buildings of Aracati have well-preserved examples of ''

azulejo (, ; from the Arabic ) is a form of Portuguese and Spanish painted Tin-glazing, tin-glazed ceramic tilework. ''Azulejos'' are found on the interior and exterior of church (building), churches, palaces, ordinary houses, schools, and nowadays, r ...

'', the blue-white

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, Rock (geology), stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, wal ...

s common in

Portuguese colonial architecture Portuguese colonial architecture refers to the various styles of Portuguese architecture built across the Portuguese Empire (including Portugal). Many former colonies, especially Brazil, Macau, and India, promote their Portuguese architecture as ...

. Aracati receives a significant amount of international tourism for its small size, attracted primarily by the quiet and calm life of the coast. Foreign-born residents can be seen living and working more and more frequently in its famous beach of

Canoa Quebrada Canoa Quebrada (meaning ''broken canoe'' in Portuguese), known as the pearl of the east coast of Ceará, Brazil, is an international tourist beach resort 164 km from Fortaleza, in the municipality of Aracati. This small fishing village, am ...

. The beaches of Majorlândia and Quixaba are also important in the region and also offer services such as bars, restaurants, and hotels.

History

The

Potiguara The Potiguara (also Potyguara or Pitiguara) are an indigenous peoples in Brazil, indigenous people of Brazil. The Potiguara people live in Paraíba, in the municipalities of Marcação, Baía da Traição and Rio Tinto, Paraíba, Rio Tinto. Th ...

, the original inhabitants of the land which Aracati now occupies, probably first came into contact with Europeans on February 2, 1500, on meeting the Spanish navigator

Vicente Yáñez Pinzón Vicente Yáñez Pinzón () (c. 1462 – after 1514) was a Spanish navigator and explorer, the youngest of the Pinzón brothers. Along with his older brother, Martín Alonso Pinzón (''c.'' 1441 – ''c.'' 1493), who captained the '' Pinta'', he ...

. On August 10, 1603, during an expedition against the French who had invaded Maranhão, Pero Coelho de Souza erected a fort, Fortim de São Lourenço, on the banks of the

Jaguaribe River The Jaguaribe River is a highly seasonal river in Ceará state of northeastern Brazil. Two large dams were constructed across the Jaguaribe, the Orós Dam, completed in 1960, and the Castanhão Dam, completed in 2003. The Castanhão Dam flooded t ...

. The village of Santa Cruz do Aracati arose around this fort. The economic growth of Aracati was enabled by the creation of workshops or charqueadas in

, which allowed the state to begin competition in the livestock industry. Aracati became a producer of dried meat and the main export port of this product to the sugarcane regions, in addition to continuing to be an important military centre. The main purpose of the Fortim de São Lourenço was now to protect the port, traders and residents against attacks by Indians such as the Payacu. Workshops for preserving meat and leatherwork already existed in Aracati in 1740. On the strength of this trade, Aracati became the economic, political, and social centre of Ceará. By 1779, Aracati had about two thousand people, five streets, many townhouses, and more than seventy stores. On October 25, 1842, the town was officially elevated to the status of a city by Provincial Law 244. In 1824, during the uprising of the Confederation of Ecuador, the village of Aracati became the scene of one of the most important events in the history of Northeastern Brazil: Tristão Gonçalves de Alencar Araripe led rebel troops in assaulting and sacking the town, staying there for a week. Throughout its history, the city suffered from the flooding of the Jaguaribe River, until a flood in 1985, motivated the construction of a dike. Buildings destroyed or damaged in floods tended to be rebuilt some distance from the river, to avoid the odors of the cattle industries; over time, this caused the city as a whole to move away from the river responsible for its emergence. In recent years, tourism has replaced livestock as the city's primary economic activity.

Transportation

The city is served by Canoa Quebrada Dragão do Mar Regional Airport. It opened as a

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...

airport on August 8, 2012, and has no regularly scheduled flights. The Airport is from downtown Aracati and from Canoa Quebrada. Two roads give access to Aracati: CE-040 and

CE-123 CE-123, or as the active enantiomer (''S'')-CE-123, is an analog of modafinil, the most researched of a series of structurally related heterocyclic derivatives. In animal studies, CE-123 was found to improve performance on tests of learning and m ...

Climate

Aracati has a typical tropical climate. The temperature generally varies from 20 to 37 °C.

Media

The city has five radio stations: Rádio Canoa FM, Rádio Plus FM, Rádio Sinal FM, Rádio Moriá, Rádio Companhia. And one television station: TV Sinal.

References

{{reflist, 2, refs= {{cite web, title=Aracati net, url=http://aracati.net/site/, publisher=Aracati net, access-date=6 June 2013 {{cite web , url = http://www.canoabrasil.com/en/aracati/index.php , title = ARACATI - Ceará State - Brazil , year = 2010 , publisher = Canoabrasil , access-date = 2014-05-01 {{cite web, title=Aracati, url=http://www.ceara.com.br/m/aracati/, publisher=ceara.com.br, access-date=6 June 2013 {{cite web , url=http://www.panrotas.com.br/noticia-turismo/aviacao/aeroporto-de-aracati-ce-e-inaugurado-por-autoridades_80335.html , title=Aeroporto de Aracati é inaugurado por autoridades , publisher=Panrotas , date=August 4, 2012 , access-date=May 7, 2014 , language=pt , first=Antonio Roberto , last=Rocha Populated coastal places in Ceará Municipalities in Ceará