Londrina, Paraná, Brazil

Londrina is the second largest city in our state, Paraná, and is the third largest city in south Brazil.  Londrina is only 70 years old and at one time was the coffee capital of the world.  From 1950 to 1970, Londrina grew a lot of coffee.  In fact, in 1961, Londrina produced 51% of all the coffee of the world.  

The city of Londrina has a unique history.  80 years ago Londrina did not even exist.  In the 1920´s, The Brazilian Plantations, Ltd, in London, England, was developing the area which today is the northern part of our state, Paraná.  That company from London, England, was building a railroad from São Paulo to the Brazilian frontier (Foz de Iguaçu, PR).  On August 21, 1929, the surveying crew building the railroad arrived in the area known as Três Bocas (now in Londrina) and engineer Dr. Alexandre Razgulaeff put down the first marker.  When the stock market crashed in 1929, construction on the railroad came to a screeching halt sometime there after. The city of Londrina sprang up where the tracks ended.  Small farm plots were sold and people started streaming into the area. 

"Londrina" means "little London." Londrina was named after the town where the company founders were from.  Dr. João Domingues Sampaio gave the name Londrina to this town.  He was one of the directors of the "Land Company of Northern Paraná" which was part of the Brazilian Plantations, Ltd. Craig Smith is considered one of the founders of the city.  He led the team of surveyors and decided that the train tracks would come through this area and would have a depot here.

Londrina Today              

Today, Londrina is a growing modern city.  It is the 628th largest city in the world and officially has a metropolitan population of 700,000.  Some estimates project that metropolitan Londrina will soon be approaching one million people.  Currently, Londrina is the economic, political, medical, and educational  center for an area that has a population of 4 1/2 million people.

Down on the Farm

The rural areas around and within an hour´s drive of Londrina have many many farms.  The major crops that farms grow are soy beans, corn, sugar cane, (for ethanol use in cars), coffee, wheat, mandioc, rice, tomatoes, beans, and some cotton.  The area produces a lot of cattle for beef, chickens, and eggs [according to the offical Londrina government website listed below].Sources: http://www1.londrina.pr.gov.br