Qualla: Feira de Santana

Feira de Santana: Introduction

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Correio da Manhã, Public domain. A chapel, a cattle road, and somewhere to stop — that is the entire founding recipe. The owners of the Fazenda Santana dos Olhos d'Água raised a chapel in honour of Nossa Senhora, Sant'Ana and São Domingos on land the estrada das boiadas already crossed, the road the drovers used to move herds toward the coast. Drovers stopped. Travellers stopped. A little fair formed around the stopping, and the fair gave the place its name: Feira de Santana, Saint Anne's Fair. Two centuries on, 616,272 people live inside that fair.

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Image: Correio da Manhã | Public domain

Feira de Santana: Where the Cattle Road Paused

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shaamunensu, CC0. The settlement became a vila on 13 November 1832 — some sources date it to 9 May 1833 instead — and in 1873 a provincial law elevated it to city status under a name that left nothing to interpretation: Cidade Comercial de Feira de Sant'Anna, the Commercial City of Saint Anne's Fa...

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Image: Shaamunensu | CC0

Feira de Santana: Two Statues, Two Centuries

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Neusa Cadore from Salvador, Brasil, CC BY 2.0. Feira de Santana has monumentalised its own logistics. One statue honours the vaqueiro, the leather-clad cowboy of the northeastern backlands who drove the herds that made the fair. Another honours the truck driver. Between those two figures lies everything the city has been: an ...

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Image: Neusa Cadore from Salvador, Brasil | CC BY 2.0

Feira de Santana: Still a Junction

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Esta fotografia foi tirada por Mathias A. P., Public domain. The BR-116, BR-101 and BR-324 meet in this neighbourhood, with the BR-324 running duplicated down to Salvador, and a ring road threads the traffic around the city rather than through it. The bus station handles services to Salvador, Vitória da Conquista, Itabuna, Aracaju, Recife,...

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Image: Esta fotografia foi tirada por Mathias A. P. | Public domain

Feira de Santana: Two Weeks After Easter

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jaques Wagner Governador from Bahia/Brasil, CC BY 2.0. The Micareta de Feira started in April 1937 and became one of Brazil's first out-of-season carnivals. It still lands two weeks after Easter, and it now bills itself as the largest such festival anywhere. September belongs to ExpoFeira, the agricultural exhibition at the Parque Jo...

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Image: Jaques Wagner Governador from Bahia/Brasil | CC BY 2.0

Feira de Santana: The Soldier from Licurizeiro

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andy Moreira, CC BY-SA 4.0. One of those districts carries the name of a woman born there on 27 July 1792. Maria Quitéria grew up at Licurizeiro in the parish of São José das Itapororocas, now part of Feira de Santana. In October 1822, with Bahia still held by Portuguese forces and the war for Brazilian ind...

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Image: Andy Moreira | CC BY-SA 4.0