The largest urban area in the Southern Hemisphere, São Paulo, with a population of almost 20 million, is a sprawling, metropolitan city surrounded by cultivated agricultural land. The city is the financial capital of Brazil and also considered as the country’s hub for commerce, fashion and industry, with São Paulo widely expected to become the sixth-largest urban GDP, currently tenth in the world.

Agriculture is a massive industry in the South American country, accounting for a significant majority of both Brazil’s exports and GDP. In São Paulo, agricultural products, from soybeans and rice to cocoa and ethanol, are cultivated and harvested, with the livestock industry in the city accounting for over 40 percent of the entire production in Brazil.

With São Paulo being one of the main states for agriculture, our focus is on the commodities sector which provide the needs of everyday items. Soybeans, coffee, sugarcane, cocoa, rice, wheat, cotton, ethanol, these are all harvested in the states of São Paulo being Espirito Santo, Goias, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Mato Grosso, Paraná and the northern states of Pará and Bahia.

Not to mention Brazil is also the largest cattle producer in the world, the northern regions of Pará and Bahia account for more than 40 percent of the cattle production in Brazil.

It should come as no surprise, then, in a city such as São Paulo, that the startup scene is concentrated in this area, thriving off the culture, industry and abundance of land. With startups come innovation and unique products and services, offering an attractive proposition for technology development and agricultural progress built upon advancements, making São Paulo a laboratory for experiment and development.

Foreign businesses go there when they want to open shop in Brazil. Brazilian businesses go there when they want to project themselves on the national scale or abroad.

It should come as no surprise that São Paulo is by far the most mature startup scene in Brazil. Even entrepreneurs from rival cities will tell you that the majority of Brazil’s startups are concentrated in the city.

Another staggering statistic of São Paulo is the amount of helicopters. With close to 700 helicopters and 400 heliports, São Paulo state has one of the three largest fleets of these aircraft in the world.

In the city of São Paulo alone, considered Brazil’s financial center, there are over 400 registered helicopters, which even places São Paulo ahead of cities like Tokyo and New York.

With around 20 million inhabitants, São Paulo was known worldwide for its chaotic traffic and in one particular incident in 2014, it set a new record with a traffic jam stretching more than 344 kilometers (214 miles) during a rush hour.

The interminable bottlenecks originally made the helicopter a virtually essential vehicle for top executives and the upper-class, especially in São Paulo, one of the cities with the largest number of millionaires in Latin America.

According to latest reports by the Brazilian Helicopter Pilots Association, Brazil has a fleet of some 1,700 helicopters across all its national territory, of which 700 are in São Paulo state, some 400 in Rio de Janeiro and around 260 in Minas Gerais.

Established tech companies like Google, Uber and Airbnb, have their Brazilian headquarters in the city.