Ipanema () is a neighbourhood located in the
South Zone of the city of
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
, Brazil, between
Leblon
Leblon (Portuguese: /leˈblõ/) is a neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is also the name of the local beach. The neighborhood is located in the South Zone of the city, between Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, Morro Dois Irmãos and the Jardim ...
and
Arpoador
Arpoador (literally, ''the harpoon thrower'') is a region located on the southern zone of the city Rio de Janeiro, in a small peninsula between Ipanema and Copacabana. Part of its territory belongs to the neighbourhood of Ipanema, and part to C ...
. The beach at Ipanema became known internationally with the popularity of the
bossa nova
Bossa nova () is a style of samba developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is mainly characterized by a "different beat" that altered the harmonies with the introduction of unconventional chords and an innovativ ...
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
song, "
The Girl from Ipanema
"Garota de Ipanema" ("The Girl from Ipanema") is a Brazilian bossa nova and jazz song. It was a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s and won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Por ...
" ("''Garota de Ipanema''"), written by
Antônio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim (25 January 1927 – 8 December 1994), also known as Tom Jobim (), was a Brazilian composer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter, arranger, and singer. Considered one of the great exponents of Brazilian mu ...
and
Vinícius de Moraes
Marcus Vinícius da Cruz e Mello Moraes (19 October 1913 – 9 July 1980), better known as Vinícius de Moraes () and nicknamed O Poetinha ("The little poet"), was a Brazilian poet, diplomat, lyricist, essayist, musician, singer, and playwright ...
.
Etymology
The name ''Ipanema'' derives from the
Tupi language
Old Tupi, Ancient Tupi or Classical Tupi (also spelled as Tupí) is an extinct Tupian language which was spoken by the aboriginal Tupi people of Brazil, mostly those who inhabited coastal regions in South and Southeast Brazil. It belongs to the ...
words ''ipá'' (pond) and ''nem-a'' (stinking).
Possible translations for its original meaning are "worthless water", "stinking lake", "turbid water", or "water worthless for human consumption".
The historian
Teodoro Sampaio translated ''Ipanema'' as "bad water".
The border area between
Copacabana and Ipanema is known locally as "Copanema".
History
Ipanema today consists mostly of land that once belonged to
José Antonio Moreira Filho, Baron of Ipanema. The name "Ipanema" did not refer originally to the beach, but to the homeland of the baron at
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
.
Character
Ipanema is adjacent to
Copacabana and
Leblon
Leblon (Portuguese: /leˈblõ/) is a neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is also the name of the local beach. The neighborhood is located in the South Zone of the city, between Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, Morro Dois Irmãos and the Jardim ...
beaches, but it is distinct from its neighbors. It is relatively easy to navigate because the streets are aligned in a grid. Ipanema's beach culture includes surfers and sun bathers who gather daily at the beach. Every Sunday, the roadway closest to the beach is closed to motor vehicles allowing local residents and tourists to ride bikes, roller skate, skateboard, and walk along the ocean. Ipanema is one of Rio's most expensive districts to live in; private investment has led to the building of world-class restaurants, shops, and cafés.
Ipanema has played a cultural role in Rio de Janeiro since the city's beginning, with its own universities, art galleries, and theaters. It holds a street parade, the
Banda de Ipanema
Banda de Ipanema is one of the largest Carnival blocks of Rio de Janeiro's street Carnival festivities. The first parade happened in 1965, when Brazil was under a military dictatorship. In 2004 it was declared part of the city's cultural heritage ...
, during Carnival festivities separate from those of Rio de Janeiro, attracting up to 50,000 people to the streets of Ipanema.
Beach
![Rio_08_2013_Ipanema_beach_near_Posto_9_Km_6913](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Rio_08_2013_Ipanema_beach_near_Posto_9_Km_6913.JPG)
The beach at Ipanema is known for its elegant development and its social life. Two mountains called the ''Dois Irmãos'' (Two Brothers) rise at the western end of the beach, which is divided into segments delineated by ''postos'', or lifeguard towers. Beer is sold everywhere, along with the traditional ''
cachaça
''Cachaça'' () is a distilled spirit made from fermented sugarcane juice. Also known as ''pinga'', ''caninha'', and other names, it is the most popular spirit among distilled alcoholic beverages in Brazil.Cavalcante, Messias Soares. Todos os no ...
''. There are always circles of people playing
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
,
volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...
, and
footvolley
Footvolley ( pt, Futevôlei in Brazil, ''Futevólei'' in Portugal) is a sport which combines aspects of beach volleyball and association football.
Footvolley was created by Octavio de Moraes in 1965 in Brazil. Footvolley combines field rules tha ...
, a locally invented sport that is a combination of volleyball and football.
In the winter the
surf can reach three metres (nine feet). The water quality varies from clear light-blue water to a more murky green after heavy rains. Constant swells help keep the water clean, and the often treacherous beach break regularly forms surfable barrels. Just west of this colorful section, towards
Leblon, Rio de Janeiro
Leblon ( Portuguese: /leˈblõ/) is a neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is also the name of the local beach. The neighborhood is located in the South Zone of the city, between Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, Morro Dois Irmãos and the Jardim ...
, is another popular stretch of sand known as Posto 10, referring to the #10 lifeguard station.
The beach is one of many areas that suffers from the city's poor waste treatment. In its waters, "fecal coliform bacteria sometimes spike at 16 times the Brazilian government's 'satisfactory' level." Large amounts of pollutants are still dumped into the sea through the nearby
marine outfall
A marine outfall (or ocean outfall) is a pipeline or tunnel that discharges municipal or industrial wastewater, stormwater, combined sewer overflows (CSOs), cooling water, or brine effluents from water desalination plants to the sea. Usually they ...
pipe, a matter of increasing concern to ecologists.
Beachgoers often applaud the sunset in the summer. In 2008, the
Travel Channel
Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...
listed Ipanema Beach as the sexiest beach in the world.
Posto 9
![1 ipanema beach vidigal sunset](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/1_ipanema_beach_vidigal_sunset.jpg)
Posto 9 is the section of the beach around the #9 lifeguard station, across from Joana Angelica Street. Its notoriety began around 1979 when
Fernando Gabeira
Fernando Paulo Nagle Gabeira (; born February 17, 1941) is a Brazilian politician, author and journalist. He was a federal deputy for the State of Rio de Janeiro from 1995 to 2011.
He is best known for his book ''O que é isso, companheiro?'' ...
, now a
federal deputy
The Chamber of Deputies ( pt, Câmara dos Deputados) is a federal legislative body and the lower house of the National Congress of Brazil. The chamber comprises 513 deputies, who are elected by proportional representation to serve four-year ...
for the State of Rio de Janeiro, returned from political exile in France and was photographed there in a thong.
He had been a member of the leftist urban guerilla group
MR8
8th October Revolutionary Movement (''Movimento Revolucionário 8 de Outubro'', MR8) was a Marxist political organization that took part in armed struggle against the Military dictatorship in Brazil. It was formed in 1964 among college students i ...
, which kidnapped the American ambassador,
Charles Burke Elbrick
Charles Burke Elbrick (March 25, 1908 – April 12, 1983) was a United States diplomat and career foreign service officer. During his career, he served three ambassadorships: in Portugal, Yugoslavia and Brazil, in addition to numerous minor post ...
, in 1969 and demanded the release of fifteen political prisoners in exchange for his life.
Gabeira became a political celebrity with the publication of a memoir about his experiences as a guerilla and his years in exile. In 1979, he was photographed wearing a skimpy purple swimsuit at Ipanema, and gave an interview to a gay and lesbian newspaper, inciting rumors that he was gay, which he neither confirmed nor denied. His going to the beach at Posto 9 made it famous throughout the country.
Posto 9 inherited its status as a gathering spot for counter-cultural types from the area near
Farme de Amoedo Street
Farme de Amoedo Street (Rua Farme de Amoedo in Portuguese, local Brazilian ) is an important LGBT street in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that starts at the Vieira Souto Avenue and ends at Alberto de Campos Street.
Another very famous gat ...
, next to the dunes called ''Dunas do Barato'' and a pier that was demolished in the 1970s. It has a long history of public cannabis smoking (illegal in Brazil), police raids, and gatherings of left-wing intellectuals. It is still popular with students, artists, actors, and liberal-minded people.
Feira Hippie de Ipanema
A group of
hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
s started a Sunday market in Ipanema in 1968 and the traditional fair continues with over 700 stalls set up at the Feira Hippie de Ipanema (Ipanema Hippie Market).
Cultural references
Ipanema gained fame with the rise of the popular
bossa nova
Bossa nova () is a style of samba developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is mainly characterized by a "different beat" that altered the harmonies with the introduction of unconventional chords and an innovativ ...
sound, when residents
Antônio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim (25 January 1927 – 8 December 1994), also known as Tom Jobim (), was a Brazilian composer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter, arranger, and singer. Considered one of the great exponents of Brazilian mu ...
and
Vinicius de Moraes
Marcus Vinícius da Cruz e Mello Moraes (19 October 1913 – 9 July 1980), better known as Vinícius de Moraes () and nicknamed O Poetinha ("The little poet"), was a Brazilian poet, diplomat, lyricist, essayist, musician, singer, and playwright ...
created their ode to the neighbourhood, "
The Girl from Ipanema
"Garota de Ipanema" ("The Girl from Ipanema") is a Brazilian bossa nova and jazz song. It was a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s and won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Por ...
." The song was written in 1962, with music by
Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by
de Moraes; English lyrics were written later by
Norman Gimbel
Norman Gimbel (November 16, 1927 – December 19, 2018) was an American lyricist of popular songs, television and movie themes. He wrote the lyrics for songs including "Killing Me Softly with His Song", " Ready to Take a Chance Again" (both with ...
.
References
External links
back to Rio, RGSSA blog post contains images of Ipanema Beach, 1914
{{Authority control
Neighbourhoods in Rio de Janeiro (city)
Beaches of Rio de Janeiro (city)