Belem
Belem is located 60 miles from the Para River entrance to the Amazon Delta. Amid the broad avenues and busy markets of this, Brazil's chief port of the lower Amazon River, there remain many intriguing reminders of how thousands of tons of rubber were once loaded for transit here to the markets of the 19th Century. One of the most attractive cities in South America, Belém has numerous public squares and well-paved streets, many of which extend to the edge of the jungle. The cultural centre of northern Brazil, Belém is the site of the Federal University of Pará (1957) and the Goeldi Museum, with its world-famous Amazonian ethnological and zoological collections.