Current Time in Limeira, Brazil

Limeira is a city in the interior of the state of São Paulo in southeastern Brazil, lying about a hundred and fifty kilometres northwest of the state capital in a region of gently rolling country covered with orange groves and sugar cane. It stands on the Anhanguera highway, one of the busiest corridors in the country, in an area of red soils that has long been among the most productive agricultural land in Brazil. The climate is tropical with a dry winter, warm and wet from October to March.

Around three hundred and ten thousand people live in Limeira, which is one of the more prosperous medium sized cities of the São Paulo interior. Its economy has two unusual specialities. The first is citrus, for the surrounding municipality and its neighbours form part of the largest orange producing region on earth, supplying juice concentrate to markets across Europe, Asia and North America. The second is jewellery. Limeira is the leading Brazilian centre for costume and gold plated jewellery, with hundreds of workshops and factories accounting for a very large share of national production, and the trade supports thousands of families.

The settlement began in the early nineteenth century around a chapel and a lime tree from which the name is derived, and it became a municipality in the 1820s. Coffee brought the first wealth, and Limeira became known for early experiments in mechanised sugar processing and later for pioneering the cultivation of oranges. Italian, Portuguese, Syrian, Lebanese and Japanese immigrants arrived from the late nineteenth century, and their descendants shaped the food, festivals and commerce of the city.

The centre retains a compact grid with the mother church of Santo Antônio, the Vitória Theatre, restored nineteenth century houses and shaded squares. The Museu Histórico e Pedagógico tells the story of the coffee era, and the Casa da Cultura and municipal library support an active local arts scene. Parque Cidade and the Lagoa area provide walking and cycling paths, while the nearby Serra do Cocais and the reservoirs of the Piracicaba basin offer weekend excursions to waterfalls, farm hotels and rural restaurants.

Limeira's calendar includes agricultural shows, a jewellery trade fair that draws buyers from across Latin America, carnival street bands and the June festivals with their bonfires and country food.

Transport is excellent by Brazilian standards, with the Anhanguera and Bandeirantes highways passing close by, frequent coaches to São Paulo and Campinas, and Viracopos International Airport less than an hour away.

Higher education is well established. The State University of Campinas maintains a technology faculty in Limeira offering engineering and health courses, and there are private colleges and technical schools linked to the local industries.

Limeira is significant as a centre of Brazilian agribusiness and craft manufacturing, and it appeals to visitors as a comfortable, green and well organised city in one of the most dynamic regions of the country.