Palmas? Where is that?

To make it harder to explain to people where I would be moving to, I resolved to move a place that no-one knows of, that’s near nowhere that anyone has heard of, and that’s hard enough to explain where it is that I can sense the regret when someone asks me. Oh, and it didn’t even exist 25 years ago.

Besides the above, it’s also the home of my wife, and she misses it after several years in the UK.

The state of Tocantins

Palmas is hot. All the time. Usually oppressively hot - no-one spends any time in the sun if they have any choice. It is the capital of the state of Tocantins, which was created in the late 80s. In the arbitrary middle of the new state, they damned a river, creating a huge lake, and plonked a city on its shores.

The city is way way inland, about 1200km from the sea, north of Brasilia, the national capital, and level in latitude with Salvador, a major tourist pull.

The centre of Palmas and its roundabouts

Palmas was inaugurated in 1990 and it is now home to nearly 300 000 people. I find it a strange place. I have the impression the infrastructure was built for a million people, but the million haven’t moved in yet. As a result, everywhere is far and you need to drive everywhere. It’s full of roundabouts, often with nothing in between them. 

It seems once the road infrastructure and the governmental buildings were finished, the city planners retired. I guess there was an early land grab, since which land has been bought and sold and developed or left to increase in value.

As a result, it’s a very green city as there is so much that remains undeveloped - entire blocks of original forest remain right in the middle of the city. In a typical 3km car journey I feel like I’ve left the city 3-4 times only to return to the city after the next roundabout.

It also means that there is no natural spreading out of the city, with the usual clusters of tall office buildings, industrial estates, commercial areas, suburbs and parks. Palmas is random, its growth determined by who sold what land and what time, who bought it and what they did with it.

You can't escape roundabouts in Palmas

In theory, the layout is simple and navigable. The governmental palace is the centre, surrounded by the state offices and with a wide avenue running to the 8km bridge that crosses the lake. Another major road runs from the palace towards the airport. The city is mostly built in geometric blocks, with logical numbering. All connected by roundabouts of course.

In reality, during my past visits, I’ve found it hard to localise myself. In a city entirely built in the last 25 years, based on such a regular pattern, there are few landmarks or distinct neighbourhoods. There is no 16^th century gothic church, no 18^th century palace, no whitewashed hillside neighbourhood, no architectural wonders, no winding lanes of cute shops. And if such things did exists, they’d be in the wrong place and where you would least expect them.