Palhoça

About Palhoça

Palhoça is a municipality in eastern Santa Catarina, Brazil. It is located on the Atlantic coast, 17 km (10 mi) from the state’s capital, Florianópolis.

Palhoça was founded in 1793, when the city was part of the route between Lages and Florianópolis, in order to protect the state capital from possible invasions. Its name comes from “straw roof,” so called because of the large number of houses with this type of roof at the time, when the first inhabitants of Palhoça were natives.

Palhoça is located in the Greater Florianópolis region. It is bordered to the north by São José, to the west by Santo Amaro da Imperatriz, to the south by Paulo Lopes, to the east by the southern bay of Santa Catarina Island, and to the southeast by the Atlantic Ocean.

Its coastline consists of an extensive mangrove area and beaches to the south.

The municipality contains part of the 84,130-hectare (207,900-acre) Serra do Tabuleiro State Park, a protected area created in 1975. The lushly forested park protects the sources of the Vargem do Braço, Cubatão and D'Una rivers, which supply most of the drinking water for Greater Florianópolis and the south coast region. The highest point...

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.