Means of transportation in Pernambuco, Brazil

Roads in Pernambuco

Click the next link to open an excellent map of multimodal transportation in Pernambuco, maintained by the Ministry of Transportation in Brazil. The map shows all the federal highways, railways, airports, ports and waterways of the State of Pernambuco; to obtain similar information for other States of Brazil, click here and click on a State in the horizontal blue bar. Notice that you can click on the icon of roads, ports, etc. to read further details about it.

There are a few federal highways in Pernambuco, but two are the most important.
BR-101 follows along the coast, from north to south; actually, this highway starts in Rio Grande do Sul and follows all the way up to Rio Grande do Norte. This road leads to Maceió, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, going south, and to João Pessoa and Natal, going north. This road is duplicated (meaning: multiple lanes each way) about 20 km south and about 30 km north.
BR-232 goes westwards, towards the Sertão (read explanation about the physical divisions of Pernambuco); it passes at the most important cities in the Agreste and Sertão. This highway is duplicated as far as Caruaru. Authorities recommend avoiding driving through the sertão; the area is violent, and the Police is unable to enforce the law; buses usually make convoys, escorted by the police.
Visit also conditions of Federal highways in Pernambuco.

Airports in Pernambuco

There are two major airports in Pernambuco: the international airport of Recife (see section arriving in Recife and the airport of Petrolina.
The airport of Petrolina was a demand of the producers of fresh fruits of Petrolina and Juazeiro; fruits are send by plane to Europe and Asia, to be consumed fresh. The airport also operates passenger flights; as mentioned above, driving across the sertão may be dangerous - flying is recommended.

Ports of Pernambuco

There are two main ports in Pernambuco: Suape and Recife.
Suape is today the largest port in the State. Most supplies used by the industries arrive via Suape, and most output is exported via Suape; an industrial cluster was created in the city of Cabo do Santo Agostinho, to take advantage of the proximity of this port. Recent studies have shown that the construction of Suape is the main cause of the shark attacks in Recife, as it created an ecological unbalance in the region.
The Port of Recife, where the History of Recife started, is today obsolete; very few commodities (like, for example, flour) are disembarked here. However, the port of Recife still concentrates all the movement of passenger vessels which arrives to the State.

Railways in Pernambuco

All railways were privatized (chartered) to CFN - Companhia Ferroviária do Nordeste (Rail Company of Northeast) a few years ago. CFN does not operate passenger lines.