🇧🇷 Brazil · South
Curitiba is the great surprise of southern Brazil: a city that breaks every tropical cliché and presents itself as cool, orderly, green and deeply European. Capital of Paraná, set almost 900 meters up on the plateau, it is famous worldwide for its urban planning: pioneering ideas in public transport, pedestrianization and urban parks were born here, turning it into a 'model city' studied by planners around the world. Walking Curitiba is discovering a different Brazil, of tidy squares, tree-lined streets, flowering ipês and a calmer rhythm.
But Curitiba is not only planning: it is also culture, art and immigrant identity. Its streets carry the legacy of the Italians, Germans, Poles and Ukrainians who arrived in the 19th and 20th centuries, visible in its themed woods, its churches, its food and the hardworking spirit of its people. The city boasts bold architectural icons, such as the Museu Oscar Niemeyer —the famous 'Museu do Olho', with its giant suspended eye— and the ethereal Ópera de Arame, a theater of tubular structure in the middle of a flooded old quarry. And it keeps a charming old town around the Largo da Ordem, with its cobbles, its Sunday market and its bohemian side.
This guide covers the essentials of Curitiba with a practical, warm eye: which parks and museums not to miss, how to make the most of the Linha Turismo, where to feel the pulse of the immigrant colonies and, above all, how to live one of the most beautiful experiences in Brazil: the train descent through the Serra do Mar to Morretes, crossing the Atlantic Forest between bridges, tunnels and waterfalls. Curitiba is a city to take slowly, to dress warmly for and to be charmed by a Brazil few people expect.
The name Curitiba comes from Tupi-Guarani and is usually translated as 'a great quantity of pines' or 'pinheiral', in reference to the araucarias (the pinheiro-do-paraná) that covered the region. Before the Europeans, the area was inhabited by Tupi-Guarani-speaking peoples. Portuguese occupation came out of interest in gold: at the end of the 17th century, gold prospectors (faiscadores) and cattlemen settled on the plateau, and on March 29, 1693 the town was officially established under the name Vila de Nossa Senhora da Luz dos Pinhais, which in time would become Curitiba. Through the 18th and 19th centuries the town grew tied to the 'caminho das tropas', the route along which cattle from the south were driven to the fairs of Sorocaba, giving Curitiba a strategic role as a waypoint. In 1853 Paraná separated from São Paulo and became a province, with Curitiba as its capital. From the second half of the 19th century the city received large waves of European immigrants —Germans, Italians, Poles, Ukrainians— who transformed its economy, its landscape and its culture, giving it the European air that sets it apart. The 20th century brought its great leap: industrialization and, above all, an urban planning revolution begun in the 1960s and 1970s with the Plano Diretor and the administration of the urbanist and mayor Jaime Lerner, which gave the city its transport network, its great parks and its worldwide fame as an 'ecological capital' and planning model. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The southern state of araucaria pine forests and great waters: from the Jesuit missions of Guairá razed by the bandeirantes to the gold of Paranaguá, from yerba mate and the tropeiros to European immigration and the coffee of the north. Home to the Iguazú Falls, to Itaipú and to Curitiba, a world benchmark in urban planning.
Read the history of Paraná →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Before it was the 'model city' that urban planners around the world study, Curitiba was a sea of araucarias: a plateau 900 meters up covered in flat-crowned pinheiro forest, so dominant in the landscape that it ended up naming the city. Because that is what the name means: the most widespread explanation is that 'Curitiba' comes from Tupi-Guarani and translates as 'a great quantity of pines' or 'pinheiral', in reference to the araucaria —the famous pinheiro-do-paraná (Araucaria angustifolia)— the tree that is still the symbol of the state of Paraná today.
The link with the araucaria fits the area's original landscape: the Primeiro Planalto Paranaense, where the city sits at about 900 meters of altitude, was covered by extensive pinheiro forests whose seeds —the pinhão— were an important food for the original peoples. Curitiba's own coat of arms and identity are tied to this tree, and the seed is still a typical winter delicacy in local cooking.
Before the Portuguese founding, the plateau was inhabited by Tupi-Guarani-speaking peoples. The indigenous place names of the region —Curitiba, Iguaçu, Paraná, Barigui— bear witness to that original presence, written into the names of the geography that European settlers and faiscadores later occupied.
The Portuguese occupation of the Curitiba plateau was tied, as in much of colonial south-central Brazil, to the search for gold. Toward the end of the 17th century, alluvial gold prospectors (the faiscadores), cattlemen and adventurers coming up from the coast —especially from the Paranaguá area— pushed into the plateau in search of precious metals in the rivers and began to settle around the first seams and around cattle raising.
The town was born from that scattered settlement. The founding act is usually dated to March 29, 1693, when the câmara (the municipal government) was officially installed and the Vila de Nossa Senhora da Luz dos Pinhais was established around a chapel. Over time the long devotional name gave way to the indigenous place name, and the town came to be known simply as Curitiba, after the pinheirais that surrounded it.
During the 18th century the region's gold ran out quickly and the local economy turned toward cattle and, above all, toward its position on the overland routes. Curitiba consolidated as a stop on the 'caminho das tropas' (or caminho de Viamão a Sorocaba), the great route along which the cattle and mule troops of the far south were driven across the plateau to the fairs of Sorocaba, in São Paulo. That role as a resting and trading town on the cattle road was key to its growth through the 18th century and the start of the 19th.
For much of the colonial and imperial period, the territory that is now the state of Paraná was part of the captaincy —and later province— of São Paulo, as its 'comarca de Curitiba'. The region had its own interests, an economy tied to cattle, yerba mate and the tropa trade, and a growing demand for autonomy from the São Paulo government.
That demand was met in 1853. By an imperial law, the comarca of Curitiba was separated from São Paulo and became an independent province: the Província do Paraná. Curitiba, already the main center of the plateau, was chosen as the capital of the new province. Emancipation gave the city fresh administrative and political impetus, and marked the beginning of its transformation from a tropeiro town into a fast-growing provincial capital.
From then on, Curitiba began to acquire the institutions, public buildings and urban improvements befitting a capital. The provincial economy diversified with the yerba mate boom —exported through the port of Paranaguá— and, later, timber. That new status laid the groundwork for the great change to come with the mass arrival of European immigrants in the following decades, who would change the face of the city forever.
If one phenomenon defines Curitiba's identity, it is the European immigration that arrived from the second half of the 19th century. Encouraged by the imperial and provincial governments, which wanted to settle and develop the south of Brazil, thousands of European families settled in Curitiba and around it, founding farming colonies and neighborhoods that completely changed the human, economic and cultural landscape of the city.
Germans came —leaving their mark on architecture, industry and communities such as those of the Bosque do Alemão—; Italians, who settled neighborhoods like Santa Felicidade, today a mecca of Italian cooking in Brazil; Poles, one of the largest immigrations, remembered in the Bosque do Papa and its memorial of log cabins; and Ukrainians, who left Eastern Rite churches and traditions such as painted eggs (pêssankas). To them were added Japanese, Syrian-Lebanese and other peoples, in a mosaic that made Curitiba one of the most 'European' and diverse cities in Brazil.
These communities transformed the economy with farming, crafts, trade and small industry, and brought their food, their festivals, their religions and their work ethic. Curitiba honors that legacy with its themed 'bosques' and memorials dedicated to each community —the Bosque do Alemão, the Bosque do Papa (Polish), the Ukrainian Memorial, the Praça do Japão— which today are a fundamental part of the tourist route and of the city's self-image as a melting pot.
One of the milestones that connected Curitiba with the rest of the country and the world was the building of the railway linking the plateau with the coast. The Estrada de Ferro Paranaguá–Curitiba, opened in 1885, was one of the great engineering works of 19th-century Brazil: to overcome the drop of some 900 meters between Curitiba and sea level, the engineers laid out a bold line across the Serra do Mar, with dozens of tunnels, bridges and viaducts suspended over chasms, cutting through rock walls and dense Atlantic Forest.
The railway solved a historic problem: until then, the plateau's output —yerba mate, timber and the farm produce of the colonies— had to come down to the port of Paranaguá on difficult roads such as the Estrada da Graciosa. With the train, transport became faster and cheaper, integrating the Paraná economy into national and international trade and consolidating Curitiba as the center of the province.
More than a century later, that engineering achievement had a second life as a tourist attraction. The stretch between Curitiba and Morretes became one of the most beautiful rail journeys in Brazil: a panoramic descent through the Serra do Mar that lets you take in the Atlantic Forest, the waterfalls and the chasms from the very bridges and tunnels built in the 19th century. The ride, ending in the colonial towns of Morretes and Antonina, is today one of the most recommended experiences in the region.
The great leap that made Curitiba famous worldwide came in the second half of the 20th century, with an urban planning revolution that would turn it into an international case study. After strong demographic and industrial growth —driven by the creation of the Cidade Industrial de Curitiba— the city needed a plan to grow in an orderly way. The answer was the 1965 Plano Diretor and, above all, its implementation from 1971 under the urbanist and architect Jaime Lerner, three times mayor of the city and later governor of Paraná.
Lerner and his team at IPPUC (the urban planning institute) put in place pioneering ideas that would be copied all over the planet. The most famous is the bus rapid transit system (BRT): bi-articulated buses running in dedicated lanes along structural axes, with the characteristic level-boarding 'tube stations' that speed up getting on, an efficient and cheap mass transit model that inspired cities on five continents. In 1972 Curitiba also created the first exclusively pedestrian street in Brazil (the Rua das Flores).
To that vision was added an environmental policy ahead of its time: a huge network of parks that, besides improving quality of life, help control flooding; pioneering recycling programs (such as 'trash exchanged for food'); and an 'ecological capital' identity the city cultivates with pride. Many of its icons —the Jardim Botânico, the Ópera de Arame, the Parque Tanguá, the Universidade Livre do Meio Ambiente, the immigrants' bosques— were born of that spirit. Although it faces the challenges of any metropolis, Curitiba is still cited as a world reference in urban planning and sustainability.