Historic Centre of São Luís

France founded it, the Dutch seized it, Portugal shaped it: São Luís, on Brazil's northern coast, keeps the complete rectangular street grid of its late-17th-century core. Economic stagnation in the early 20th century spared an exceptional stock of colonial buildings, many faced with Portuguese azulejo tiles against the tropical heat. UNESCO inscribed the historic centre in 1997 as a superb specimen of Iberian colonial town-building.