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Santarém (Santarém)

Santarém is a city and municipality in the western part of the state of Pará in Brazil. Located at the confluence of the Tapajós and Amazon Rivers, it has become a popular tourist destination. It is the second-most important city in the state, and the financial and economic center of the western part of the state. It leads the Santarém Metropolitan Area, made up of Santarém, Belterra and Mojuí dos Campos. It was once home to the Tapajós Indians, a tribe of Native Americans after whom the river was named. They were the leaders of a large, agricultural chiefdom that flourished before the arrival of Europeans.

It is located some 800 km (500 mi) from the two largest cities in the Brazilian Amazon: Manaus, upriver in the state of Amazonas, and the Pará state capital Belém, located downriver at the mouth of the Amazon on the Atlantic Ocean. Santarém has an estimated population of 306,480 people (2020), and is the third most populous city of the state. The city occupies an area of 22 887,087 km2 (14 304,42 sq mi), of which 77 km2 are urban areas.

The city was founded by Portuguese colonists in 1661 as New, it was discovered by Priest Felipe Bettendorff Santarém (after the city in Portugal). It is one of the oldest cities in the Brazilian Amazon. This is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santarém.

Because of the crystalline waters of the Tapajós River, Santarém has more than 100 km (62 mi) of natural beaches, such as those of the village of Alter do Chão, known as the "Caribbean in Brazil." The Guardian ranked this beach as the most beautiful in Brazil. Alter do Chão is also home to Sairé, one of the most important folklore festivals of the region, which is held annually in September.

Some political activists have lobbied to create a new Brazilian state by dividing the enormous state of Pará into western and eastern regions. The new state to be established in the west would be called the Tapajós, with Santarém serving as the capital.

The first written references to the Tapajós Indian settlement in the area date back to 1542, when Francisco Orellana sacked one of their corn plantations.

In 1621, ten years after the founding of Belém at the mouth of the Amazon River, the Portuguese explorer Pedro Teixeira, along with Father Cristovão, 26 soldiers and many Indians, set off to explore the upper reaches of the Amazon. They eventually found a Tupuliçus Indian settlement near the mouth of the Tapajós River and made port there. The Indians had already had contact with Europeans, mainly Spanish explorers who had been to the settlement. The Portuguese and Tupuliçus started trading.

Pedro Teixeira resumed his exploration. The Jesuits took on the work of founding a village for missionary purposes on the site, where Father António Vieira was known to have visited in 1659. Santarém was founded by Father João Felipe Bettendorff on 22 June 1661 with the name "Aldeia do Tapajós" (Tapajós village). Father Bettendorff built the Chapel of Our Lady of Conception. The site where the first mass was celebrated in the city is now marked by a monument. The Jesuits founded other villages nearby, including the Village of Borsari, known today as the Village of Alter do Chão, Pará.

After development from the missionaries, Francisco da Mota Falcão started construction of a fortress by the river in 1693, which was finished by his son, Manoel Mota Siqueira in 1697. The building had a square shape and featured bastions on each corner. The Fortress of Tapajós was the nucleus of the village that developed as the city of Santarém.

In 1758, the village of Tapajós was given the status of Vila and the name of Santarém, after a portuguese city with the same name, and later was elevated to the category of city in October 24, 1848 by provincial law nº 145.