Presidente Prudente, Brazil: “Capital of the West Paulista,” Its Squares and History

Statue of Presidente Prudente's founder, Francisco de Paula Goulart. Photo: Zekialves, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Presidente Prudente is a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and, the Wikivoyage guide says, one of the main industrial and cultural centers of the São Paulo West, so much so that it became known as the "Capital of the West Paulista." It lies about 350 miles (560 km) west of the state capital. This overview condenses the guide and leaves out its listings of shops, restaurants, hotels and services, with their phone numbers and opening hours.

The city and its past

The municipality covers 562 km², of which 16.5 km² is urban. Its population was estimated at 208,000 in 2010, the 36th largest in the state of São Paulo. It is made up of the city and the districts of Ameliópolis, Eneida, Floresta do Sul and Montalvão, subdivided into about 220 neighborhoods. The land lies next to the Paraná River basin and is gently undulating, with hills and many small and medium streams.

The city was named after Prudente de Morais, a Brazilian lawyer and politician who was the first governor of the state of São Paulo (1889-1890). The economic crisis of 1929 hit municipalities tied to coffee production hard, and Presidente Prudente added other activities, such as growing cotton. Its industrialization began in the mid-1930s. In the 1940s much of the usable land was pasture, and the growing importance of cattle ranching in the region came with deforestation, followed by industries that processed the raw materials of cattle breeding.

The climate is tropical rainy, with less dry and cold winters, which have light frosts on a few days, and rainy summers with high temperatures. July is the driest month and January the rainiest. In the 2010s, hot, dry winter days, often above 30°C and especially between July and September, became increasingly frequent.

Getting there and around

The city has a state airport, which the guide calls the third busiest in the state of São Paulo, a bus station on Avenida Brasil, and three state highways, SP 270 (the Raposo Tavares highway), SP 501 and SP 425 (the Assis Chateaubriand highway).

The city is easy enough to walk: the main routes are basically flat, though paths in the central area are narrow and somewhat haphazard. Traffic can seem chaotic on old, narrow streets. The guide advises avoiding the central avenues on weekdays, when pedestrians and cars crowd them and parking is hard, including in the "Blue Zone" pay-parking area. There are many speed bumps, and large vehicles over two tons are not allowed in the central area.

Sights

• San Sebastian Cathedral. It was a long-held dream of the city's vicar, Father Jose Maria Martinez Sarrion, who in 1927 formed a commission of prominent families to raise funds. The plan is cross-shaped, work began two years after the commission formed, and the church was completed in 1949. It became the seat of the diocese in 1961.
• Centro Cultural Matarazzo. The building was used for cotton processing in the city's golden phase of production. It now holds libraries, exhibition halls, craft workshops, small art schools, rooms for teaching and performances, and a digital inclusion area, plus a modern theater with 530 seats.
• Children's City. A landscaped complex of 172 hectares, 46 of them remnant Atlantic forest, the ecosystem that once covered the west of São Paulo. It has a little train, a kart track, a zoo, a planetarium, an aviary, an observatory and a water park.
• Museum and Historical Archive. The collection covers about 90 years of the city's history and is housed in the old Municipal Slaughterhouse, in a baroque-style building, since 1973. It holds more than 6000 manuscripts and printed documents.
• Parque do Povo. A green leisure area in a valley bottom, built with federal funds, with skating rinks, pools, sports courts, cycle lanes and jogging tracks.
• Cherry Blossom Square. Built in 1978 to mark the 70th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil and turned into a Japanese garden in 2007 for the centennial of immigration. Stones of various sizes stand for the father, mother and children, and camellias, cherry trees and lanterns fill the garden.
• Tenente Nicolau Maffei Street. Renamed in 1937 for a lieutenant of the Constitutionalist army who was killed in combat on September 22, 1932; the enemy buried him with military honors. Its first five blocks became a pedestrian street in 1979.
• Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida. Construction began in 1922 on land from the city's colonizer, and the shrine was created on June 10, 1988.

San Sebastian Cathedral. Photo: Zekialves, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Centro Cultural Matarazzo. Photo: Zekialves, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Cherry Blossom Square. Photo: Zekialves, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Parque do Povo. Photo: Zekialves, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Events

The guide lists a national theatre festival held every year, in which companies from across Brazil perform in theaters and on the streets, a book fair to encourage reading by putting authors in touch with readers, Nikkei Fest, which promotes Japanese culture, the Festival of Nations, held for the celebrations of the patron saint, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, an Arena Rodeo Festival, and Christmas concerts.

Staying safe

The guide says locals consider Presidente Prudente a relatively quiet town, though it has poorer, more distant neighborhoods more prone to drug trafficking and crime. It advises visitors to be careful in remote places, especially at night, and to stay in well-lit, busy places. It suggests avoiding walking downtown and in the Parque do Povo area after 23:00 on weekdays, and avoiding the area of the bus station and urban terminal, where armed robbery customarily occurs.

Where next

The guide points to Presidente Epitácio, a tourist resort known for its carnival on the banks of the Paraná River, and to Londrina, the second largest city in the state of Paraná. It also names Araçatuba, known nationally as the Live Cattle Capital, Maringá, one of the few planned garden cities of Brazil, and Marília, known as the National Food Capital.

Sources

• Wikivoyage contributors, Presidente Prudente, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; photos credited in their captions, each under its own Creative Commons licence. Changed here: condensed and rewritten, with listings, phone numbers and opening hours left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.