Birigüi, São Paulo, Southeast Region, Brazil

🇧🇷 Birigui is a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The city is located on the north-west of the state. The name Birigui comes from the Tupi–Guarani language and means "little fly". It refers to the Lutzomyia fly, very common at the area. The city is known for its children's footwear industry.

History As the major cities of the region, Birigui, emerged and grew from the Northwest Railway, built at the beginning of the century. In the beginning was a key in the clearing, located between the km 259 and 261 that in 1908 happened to be a point of stop of locomotives. The town was founded on December 7, 1911 by Mr. Nicolau da Silva Nunes, an entrepreneurial Portuguese native of the Parish of Moutamorta, Trás-os-Montes.

The founder maintained in the future city the denomination given by the workers of the local railroad. The name Birigui originated in the Tupi-Guarani language, the Indians used this word as the meaning of "fly that always comes" to a tiny hematophagous mosquito that bothered everyone and was quite frequent in the region. Nicolau da Silva Nunes met the region attracted by a newspaper article, on the first visit he was charmed by the exuberance and fertility of the lands of the region, especially those that involved the key of Birigui. He bought 400 bushels for himself and his representatives, Antonio Gonçalves Torres and Afonso Garcia Franco, and when he returned to Sales de Oliveira, the city where he lived, he placed the lots on sale.

Nicolau da Silva Nunes envisioned that those forests, the fertile land and the clear waters emanated progress. The only difficulty in his enterprise was his neighbors, the Crowned Indians. To avoid frightening his customers, he used trickery, he asked, until they had erased the Indians' trail and moved in two wagons to demonstrate security. However, neither the hostility of the Indians nor the presence of the small mosquito discouraged the first inhabitants. The first residents who accompanied the founder were Francisco Galindo Romero, Manoel Inacio, Francisco Galindo de Castro and his wife, Dona Antonia Real Dias, the first woman to live here. The first house was erected made of mud, at the confluence of the present Silvares and Founders' Streets. Lucas Scarpin, Antonio Simões, Faustino Segura, Ricardo Del Nery, João Galo, France Contel and Giuzeppe Fonzar were some of the pioneers. In 1912, Birigui gains another inhabitant, José Cordeiro, a typical bandeirante captain who leaves Lençóis Paulista with his expedition and joins the town. Manuel Bento da Cruz founded the company of Lands, Timber and Colonization São Paulo, with as pioneers Roberto Clark and James Mellor.

With the passage of time, the crop is occupying what was bush. Our coffee cycle is coming. With this rampant progress, Birigui achieved his emancipation on December 8, 1921, only ten years after its foundation. In February 1922 the first town hall of Birigui was elected, a month later Archibald Thomas Clark took office as the first mayor.

Economy The Tertiary sector corresponds to 71.12% of Birigui's GDP. The Secondary sector is 27.07% of the GDP and the Primary sector corresponds to 1.8%.

Birigui is recognised for being the most important centre of children's shoes production in Brazil with a production of 57 million pairs in the year of 2006. In the same year it had 159 industries in the children' shoe's segment and their profit was over 800 million reais (R$). Among all these industries there are over 18 thousand workers which consist in 60% of the jobs offered in all the city.

Footwear industry (2014/2015) • 350 factories • Daily output 250,501 pairs • Annual production 58.2 million pairs / year • Annual export 2.9% • Employees in the footwear industry 19,490 • 50 shops of factories (approximately).

Geography Located under the latitude 21º17'19" S and longitude 50º20'24" W. Geographic space Region: 9th Administrative Region. Location: Northwest of the State of São Paulo. Highways: Marechal Rondon, Engineer Gabriel Melhado Filho and Senator Teotônio Vilela. Boundaries: Northeast - Buritama; East - Crowned; Southwest - Bilac; West - Araçatuba. Distance to: • São Paulo - 521 km • Araçatuba - 11 km • Bilac - 19 km • Buritama - 40 km • Coroados - 9 km.

Geography: Hydrography Rivers: Tietê, Baixotes, Grande, Tabapuã, Ribeirão Baguaçu, Da Colônia, Do Imbé, Barro Preto, Água Branca

Demography • Population: 108 728 inhabitants (IBGE/2010) • Demographic density (inhabitants/km²): 204.79 • Infantile mortality until 1 year old(in each thousand children): 9,64 • Life expectancy (years old): 74,96 • Fecundity rate (children by woman): 2,01 • Human development index (HDI): 0,829 ◦ HDI Income: 0,761 ◦ HDI Longevity: 0,833 ◦ HDI Education: 0,893.

Ethnography • Colour/race Percentage • White 78,0% • Black 1,8% • Brown 18,8% • Yellow 1,1% • Amerindian 0,2%

Education The city has 10 day-nurseries, 21 EMEI (Municipal School of Infantile Education), 11 EMEFs (Municipal School of Basic Education), 5 State Schools of Basic Education, 7 State High Schools, 5 private High Schools and 3 universities.

Sport Soccer and biribol, an aquatic version of volleyball are the most popular sports in the city. The soccer team, Bandeirante Esporte Clube, was founded on March 11, 1923 and its first president was José Troncoso, who currently names a street in the city. In 1987 the team played professionally in the Premier League of Campeonato Paulista (a championship in the state of São Paulo)

Biribol was invented in the city by the Teacher Dario Miguel Pedro.

Transport • SP-300 Rodovia Marechal Cândido Rondon • SP-461 Rodovia Gabriel Melhado • Estrada BIGI-458 • Estrada José Gusman.