Friendly Attitude to Foreigners: 80%
General Friendliness: 72%
Brasília, Brazil’s capital, is the better-known city in the country, but São Paulo, the country’s financial center, is the friendliest. With 12 million residents, it’s also the nation’s most populated city, so expect to meet lots of friendly faces here. One ex-pat noted, “It's easy to embrace the culture and fit in” here.
As befits a global finance city, São Paulo is multicultural, with a large population of Arab, Italian and Japanese ex-pats. Architecture buffs in particular will enjoy the destination, where iconic buildings range from the Catedral Metropolitana, which broke ground in 1913 and opened in 1954, to modern skyscrapers, some of the tallest in the world.
Paulista Avenue – a sort of Brazilian 5th Avenue, with shopping and museums – is well worth seeing too, as is the large and scenic Ibirapuera Park.