Qualla: Olímpia

Olímpia: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The newspapers call it the Brazilian Orlando. That is a considerable claim for a town of 55,130 people in the interior of São Paulo state, but Thermas dos Laranjais, the water park that dominates the local economy, has the numbers to back it up. In 2019 the park drew 1.8 million visitors, placing it repeatedly among the Themed Entertainment Association's most-visited water parks in the world. Olímpia has spent the last three decades rebuilding itself from a coffee and cattle town into a tourism economy, and in 2014 the São Paulo legislature officially designated it a touristic municipality. The waterslides were the wedge. The rest followed.

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Image: Public domain

Olímpia: Before the Waterslides

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Creedence, CC BY-SA 4.0. Archaeological evidence pushes the area's history back a thousand years before European arrival. In the early 1990s, construction workers found four funerary urns containing bones, bead necklaces, and pots. Researchers later linked them to the Tupi and the Macro-Ge peoples, both ...

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Image: Creedence | CC BY-SA 4.0

Olímpia: The English Surveyors

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Creedence, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1903, as the settlement grew beyond what a loose association of farms could manage, local landowners made an unusual decision. They hired two English immigrants, Robert John Reid and William Leatherbarrow, to subdivide the land and formally lay out the town. The British survey...

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Image: Creedence | CC BY-SA 4.0

Olímpia: Thermas dos Laranjais

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CivArmy, CC BY 4.0. The park opened in 1987. It now covers 300,000 square meters and offers more than fifty-five attractions, including what the park describes as the largest complex of waterslides in Brazil. Surfing facilities, pools, and themed rivers share the grounds with family-oriented offerin...

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Image: CivArmy | CC BY 4.0

Olímpia: Folklore and Football

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Veveldepocinhos, CC BY-SA 4.0. The water park is not the only cultural identity Olímpia claims. The city has branded itself the National Capital of Folklore and hosts the Festival Nacional do Folclore each year. Folklore groups from across Brazil perform on its stages, with acts ranging from the Gaucho traditi...

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Image: Veveldepocinhos | CC BY-SA 4.0