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Nearly five hundred years have seen RIO DE JANEIRO transformed from a fortified outpost on the rim of an unknown continent into one of the world's great cities. Its recorded past is tied exclusively to the legacy of the colonialism on which it was founded. No lasting vestige survives of the civilization of the Tamoios people, who inhabited the land before the Portuguese arrived, and the city's history effectively begins on January 1, 1502, when a Portuguese captain, André Gonçalves, steered his craft into Guanabara Bay, thinking he was heading into the mouth of a great river. The city takes its name from this event - Rio de Janeiro means the "River of January". In 1555, the French, keen to stake a claim on the New World, established a garrison near the Sugar Loaf mountain, and the Governor General of Brazil, Mem de Sá, made an unsuccessful attempt to oust them. It was left to his son, Estácio de Sá, finally to defeat them in 1567, though he fell - mortally wounded - during the battle. The city then acquired its official name, São Sebastião de Rio de Janeiro, after the infant king of Portugal, and Rio began to develop on and around the Morro do Castelo - in front of where Santos Dumont airport now stands.

With Bahia the centre of the new Portuguese colony, initial progress in Rio was slow, and only in the 1690s, when gold was discovered in the neighbouring state of Minas Gerais, did the city's fortunes look up, as it became the control and taxation centre for the gold trade. During the seventeenth century the sugar cane economy brought new wealth to Rio, but despite being a prosperous entrepôt, the city remained poorly developed. For the most part it comprised a collection of narrow streets and alleys, cramped and dirty, bordered by habitations built from lath and mud. However, Rio's strategic importance grew as a result of the struggle with the Spanish over territories to the south (which would become Uruguay), and in 1763 the city replaced Bahia (Salvador) as Brazil's capital city. By the eighteenth century, the majority of Rio's inhabitants were African slaves. Unlike other foreign colonies, in Brazil miscegenation became the rule rather than the exception: even the Catholic Church tolerated procreation between the races, on the grounds that it supplied more souls to be saved. As a result, virtually nothing in Rio remained untouched by African customs, beliefs and behaviour - a state of affairs that clearly influences today's city, too, with its mixture of Afro-Brazilian music, spiritualist cults and cuisine.

In March 1808, having fled before the advance of Napoleon Bonaparte's forces during the Peninsular War, Dom João VI of Portugal arrived in Rio, bringing with him some 1500 nobles of the Portuguese royal court. So enamoured of Brazil was he that after Napoleon's defeat in 1815 he declined to return to Portugal and instead proclaimed "The United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, of this side and the far side of the sea, and the Guinea Coast of Africa" - the greatest colonial empire of the age, with Rio de Janeiro as its capital. During Dom João's reign the Enlightenment came to Rio, the city's streets were paved and lit, and Rio acquired a new prosperity based on coffee .

Royal patronage allowed the arts and sciences to flourish, and Rio was visited by many of the illustrious European names of the day. In their literary and artistic work they left a vivid account of contemporary Rio society - colonial, patriarchal and slave-based. Yet while conveying images of Rio's street life, fashions and natural beauty, they don't give any hint of the heat, stench and squalor of life in a tropical city of over 100,000 inhabitants, without a sewerage system. Behind the imperial gloss, Rio was still mostly a slum of dark, airless habitations, intermittently scourged by outbreaks of yellow fever, its economy completely reliant upon human slavery .

However, by the late nineteenth century, Rio had lost much of its mercantilist colonial flavour and started to develop as a modern city: trams and trains replaced sedans, the first sewerage system was inaugurated in 1864, a telegraph link was established between Rio and London, and a tunnel was excavated which opened the way to Copacabana, as people left the crowded centre and looked for new living space. Under the administration of the engineer Francisco Pereira Passos , Rio went through a period of urban reconstruction that all but destroyed the last vestiges of its colonial design. The city was torn apart by a period of frenzied building between 1900 and 1910, its monumental splendour modelled on the Paris of the Second Empire. Public buildings, grand avenues, libraries and parks were all built to embellish the city, lending it the dignity perceived as characteristic of the great capital cities of the Old World.

During the 1930s Rio enjoyed international renown, buttressed by Hollywood images and the patronage of the first-generation jet set. Rio became the nation's commercial centre, too, and a new wave of modernization swept the city, leaving little more than the Catholic churches as monuments to the past. Even the removal of the country's political administration to the new federal capital of Brasília in 1960 did nothing to discourage the developers. Today, with the centre rebuilt many times since colonial days, most interest lies not in Rio's buildings and monuments but firmly in the beaches to the south of the city. For more than sixty years these have been Rio's heart and soul, providing a constant source of recreation and income for cariocas. In stark contrast, Rio's favelas , clinging precariously to the hillsides, show another side to the city, saying much about the divisions within it. Although not exclusive to the capital, these slums seem all the more harsh in Rio because of the plenty and beauty that surround them.

Rio's public transport system is cheap and effective: most places can be reached by metrô, bus or taxi, or a combination of these, while for getting about the state you might want to rent a car - though driving in the city itself is not recommended unless you have nerves of steel.

The safest and most comfortable way to travel is by using Rio's metrô system, in operation since 1979. It's limited to just two lines, which run from Monday to Saturday, 6am to 11pm: Line 1 runs from Copacabana (Cardeal Arcoverde station), north through Centro and then out to the Sãens Pena station in the bairro of Maracanã; Line 2 comes in from Maria de Graça, to the north of the city, via the Maracanã stadium, and meets Line 1 at Estação Central, by Dom Pedro II train station. The system is well designed and efficient, the stations bright, cool, clean and secure, and the trains air-conditioned, a relief if you've just descended from the scorching world above.

Tickets are bought as singles ( ida; 50¢) or returns ( doplo; $1), or are valid for ten journeys ( dez; $5). Ten-journey tickets can save time, but cost the same and can't be shared, as the electronic turnstiles only allow entrance at eight-minute intervals. You can also buy integrated bus/metrô tickets ( integrades; 70¢), useful for making the link between the metrô station at Botafogo and Ipanema or Leblon. You catch the buses directly outside the metrô station: they both run circular routes between Botafogo and Leblon, the #M21 going via the "Jóquei Clube", the #M22 via Copacabana.

It's sometimes suggested that it's irresponsible to encourage tourists to use the city buses because they're badly driven, will probably end up getting you lost and are the scene of much petty theft. But, while it's true that some of Rio's bus drivers have a somewhat erratic driving style - to say the least - it's well worth mastering the system: with over three hundred routes and six thousand buses, you never have to wait more than a few moments for a bus, they run till midnight and it's not that easy to get lost.

Numbers and destinations are clearly marked on the front of buses, and there are plaques at the front and by the entrance detailing the route. You get on at the back, pay the seated conductor (the price is on a card behind his head) and then push through the turnstile and find yourself a seat. Buses are jam-packed at rush hour, so if your journey is short, start working your way to the front of the bus as soon as you're through the turnstile; you alight at the front. If the bus reaches the stop before you reach the front, haul on the bell and the driver will wait. This kind of confusion really only occurs during rush hour , which is 5pm to 7pm in the evening. In the beach areas of the Zona Sul, especially along the coast, bus stops are not always marked. Stick your arm out to flag the bus down, or look for groups of people by the roadside facing the oncoming traffic, as this indicates a bus stop.

To avoid being robbed on the bus, don't leave wallets or money in easily accessible pockets, or flash cameras around. If there's a crush, carry any bags close to your chest. Have your fare ready so that you can pass through the turnstile immediately, as pickpockets operate at the rear of the bus, by the entrance, so that they can make a quick escape, and don't let the turnstile come between you and anything you don't want to lose. Special care should be taken on buses known to carry mostly tourists (such as those to the Sugar Loaf) and which are consequently considered rich pickings by thieves.

Taxis in Rio come in two varieties: yellow ones with a blue stripe which cruise the streets; or the larger and more comfortable radio cabs , white and with a red and yellow stripe, ordered by phone. Both have meters and, unless you have pre-paid at the airport, you should insist that it is activated, and check too that it has been cleared after the last fare. The flag, or bandeira, over the meter denotes the tariff. Normally this will read "1", but after 10pm, and on Sundays, holidays and throughout December, you have to pay twenty percent more; then the bandeira will read "2".

Generally speaking, Rio's taxi service is reasonably priced (Centro to Ipanema costs around $9, Botafogo to Copacabana around $4) and it is not in the cabbies' interest to alienate tourists by ripping them off; the only time to avoid ordinary (yellow and blue) taxis is when you're coming into town from an airport. However, late at night, drivers often quote a fixed price that can be up to three times the normal fare. Radio cabs are thirty percent more expensive than the regular taxis, but they are reliable; companies include Central de Táxi (tel 021/593-2598), Coopertramo (tel 021/560-2022) and Transcoopass (tel 021/590-2220)

From Praça XV de Novembro ferries transport passengers across Guanabara Bay to the city of Niterói and to Paquetá Island, a popular day-trip destination to the north of Guanabara Bay. The ferries are extremely cheap and the view of Rio they afford, especially at sunset, is well worth the effort. The thirty-minute crossings to Niterói are very frequent and cost 75¢; just turn up and buy a ticket. The CONERJ company ferries (Companhia de Navegação do Estado de Rio de Janeiro; tel 021/533-6661) run Monday to Saturday, every fifteen minutes from 6am to 11pm; Sunday and public holidays, every thirty minutes from 7am to 11pm. To the island of Paquetá, there are eight departures a day from 5.30am to 10.30pm and tickets cost about $1.50; crossings take eighty minutes. Also from Praça XV de Novembro, Transtur (tel 021/533-4343) operates hydrofoils to Paquetá (departures every hour Mon-Fri from 10am to 4pm, Sat, Sun & holidays 8am to 3pm; 30min); tickets cost around $5 on weekdays and $8 at weekends. Transtur also operates to Niterói every seven minutes from 6.15am to 8.15pm; the journey takes ten minutes and costs $3.

Rio's last remaining electric trams , the bondes (pronounced "bonjis"), climb from near Largo Carioca, across the eighteenth-century Aqueduto da Carioca, to the inner suburb of Santa Teresa and on to Dois Irmãos. Two lines run every fifteen minutes between 5am and midnight: the one for Dois Irmãos permits you to see more of Santa Teresa; the other line terminates at Largo do Guimarães. The trams still serve their original purpose of transporting locals, and haven't yet become a tourist service. The views of Rio are excellent, but beware of the young men who jump onto the tram and attempt to relieve you of your possessions. The best times of day to ride the tram are mid-morning and mid-afternoon when it's less crowded and, consequently, less chaotic. For added safety, hop on a tram that's carrying a police officer to watch over tourists. The tram station is downtown behind the monumentally ugly Petrobrás building and adjacent to the Nova Catedral. Waiting passengers stand in eight lines, one for every row of seats on the tram; the fare is about 50¢ which you pay on board.

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