The African soul of Brazil — where the Pelourinho's 17th-century Portuguese colonial squares are filled with candomblé rhythms, acarajé vendors fry black-eyed-pea fritters in dendê oil by the ocean, the world's largest street carnival draws 2.5 million people to the streets each February, and the city's overwhelming African-descended population has kept West African religious and culinary traditions alive since 1550
Salvador (2.9 million; metro 4.0 million) is the capital of Bahia state and the third-largest city in Brazil — the first capital of colonial Brazil (1549–1763) and the port through which an estimated 1.5–2 million enslaved Africans entered the country, making it the city with the largest proportion of African-descended population outside Africa itself (approximately 80% Afro-Brazilian). The Pelourinho (literally 'pillory', the square where enslaved people were punished) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1985) — 23 blocks of 17th- and 18th-century colonial architecture, Baroque churches, and br…
Salvador was founded in 1549 as the first capital of colonial Brazil by Governor-General Tomé de Sousa — chosen for its strategic position on a defensible bluff above the Bay of All Saints and its potential as a port for the growing sugar trade. The city became the hub of the Brazilian slave trade: between 1550 and 1850, approximately 1.5–2 million enslaved people were transported from West and Central Africa (primarily from the Bight of Benin, the Kingdom of Dahomey, and the Congo Basin) through Salvador's port — more than through any other port in the Americas. The Candomblé religion (a syn…