Recife, city, capital of Pernambuco estado (state), northeastern Brazil, and centre of an area that includes several industrial towns. It is an Atlantic seaport located at the confluence of the Capibaribe and Beberibe rivers. Recife has been called the Venice of Brazil because the city is crossed by waterways and its component parts are linked by numerous bridges.
In the second quarter of the 16th century wealthy Portuguese colonists of the captaincy of Pernambuco lived in splendour at Olinda, just to the north. Recife was then merely an anchorage that handled their exports of sugar and their imports. It was raided by French pirates in 1561 and by the English in 1595. In 1630 it was captured by the Dutch, who held it for 24 years. The town prospered under the governorship of Count John Maurice of Nassau. In 1710 the inhabitants revolted against the magnates of Olinda in what is now called the War of the Mascates (i.e., peddlers) because the small tradesmen of Recife tried to organize a municipality of their own. In 1827 Recife became the official capital of the province of Pernambuco.