at a glance

before copacabana was the city's hot spot of glamour and style that it is today, it was little more than a beach used for fishing. in fact, only a couple of hundred years ago, in the mid-eighteenth century, it was vacant besides a small fisherman's village, known by the indigenous tupi name, sacopenapã.

the name meant 'flapping noise' or 'path of' socós, a type of bird very common in rio, and it was later changed to copacabana in honor of a replica of a bolivian / peruvian virgin mary that was located in a local chapel.

the neighborhood was established as copacabana in 1892, with the opening of tunel velho, integrating it with the rest of the city, which in turn enabled it to grow. a major turning point was the inauguration of the avenida atlântica along the beach, in the early 1900's.