In 1612 São Luís was settled by the French, who intended to make it the control centre of all the coast region. The city was quickly conquered by the Portoguese, whose influence is immediately noticed discovered in the buildings architecture.
The district of Praia Grande, the old commercial and trading zone, is an example of the past wealth richness, with ancient residences covered by pottery slabs of different colours and sizes and small streets paved with canthar stone.
São Luís shows the most homogeneous architectonic whole of the Latin-american region, decorated by an incalculable number of tiles and by a style which is unique in all the world, so that the Unesco has stated this “Coffer-City” as “World Heritage Site”.

See the RAI video about São Luís