Jijoca de Jericoacoara () is the northernmost municipality in the Brazilian state of

Ceará Ceará (, pronounced locally as or ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is the eighth-largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the ...

, near the city of Cruz. It is known for its eponymous beach and

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

. It is served by Jericoacoara airport, which opened in 2017.

Name

The word Jericoacoara comes from

Tupi Tupi may refer to: * Tupi people of Brazil * Tupi or Tupian languages, spoken in South America ** Tupi language, an extinct Tupian language spoken by the Tupi people * Tupi oil field off the coast of Brazil * Tupi Paulista, a Brazilian municipalit ...

(an indigenous language) and means "lair of turtles (îurukûá means "sea turtle" and kûara means "lair, hole")."

History

A fact of some historical significance is the report of Vicente Yáñez Pinzón (Captain of '' Nau'' Niña, the fleet of Christopher Columbus), which anchored in the bay of Jericoacoara in 1499. But this was not official at the time as a result of the

Treaty of Tordesillas The Treaty of Tordesillas, ; pt, Tratado de Tordesilhas . signed in Tordesillas, Spain on 7 June 1494, and authenticated in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Emp ...

, which was signed in the same year.

References

Populated places established in 1991 Populated coastal places in Ceará 1991 establishments in Brazil Municipalities in Ceará {{Ceará-geo-stub