Sorocaba is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Sorocaba is the fourth largest city in the state of São Paulo. Outside the Greater São Paulo region, it ranks behind only Campinas, São José dos Campos and Ribeirão Preto. With an estimated population of 584,313 inhabitants, it is a regional capital of the Sorocaba microregion with 14 municipalities, totaling over 1.5 million inhabitants. It has an area of 456.0 km ², of which 349.2 km ² is urban and 106.8 km ² rural area.
Proportional to population, the municipality is the least violent in the interior due to the great performance of the Military Police, both Civil and Municipal, mainly between 2000 and 2002, who fought violence, child labor and drug trafficking.
Over the past twelve years the city has been undergoing extensive urbanization projects, improving streets and avenues, as well as infrastructure for the traffic which the city receive every day.
The city has 60 miles of exclusive bike paths that run along many of the city's main avenues. Plans for the future hope to make Sorocaba the largest cycling network in Latin America. The city is implementing a public bike system similar to the European cities of Barcelona and Paris. Sorocaba currently has the second largest cycling loop in Brazil, after Rio de Janeiro.
It is the eighth and fourth municipality in the consumer market in the state outside the Greater São Paulo metropolitan area, with a potential annual per capita consumption estimated at $ 2,400 for the urban population and $ 917 for rural areas (7200 people) and twenty-ninth largest city in Brazil with potential for consumption. Still, it is the 4th largest city of the state to receive new investments and one of the largest in the country, figuring in the list of 30 cities that create more jobs in Brazil.
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