To see just how hard that can be, consider the case of Salvador de Bahia, for two centuries until 1763 the capital of Portuguese Brazil.

ECONOMIST: Brazilian cities

In December a team from the Brazilian Environmental Institute (IBAMA) tried in vain to find the bird in the Curaca region, some 600 km (370 miles) north of Salvador de Bahia.

BBC: Brazil hunts for unique lost bird

Transat Jacques Vabre competitors sail in the opposite direction to the coffee trade route of the 19th Century, leaving Le Havre in France and heading for Salvador de Bahia in Brazil.

BBC: Transat Jacques Vabre

According to a leaked parliamentary report, several cadets on the Gorch Fock were reluctant to climb the mast in November following the death of a 25-year-old student - known only as Sarah S - during a stop-over in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil.

BBC: Germany investigates alleged Gorch Fock mutiny

Brazil's third city Salvador, in Bahia state, northeast Brazil, has some of the strongest links to Africa.

CNN: From Samba to carnival: Brazil's thriving African culture

At the Federal University of Bahia in Salvador, for example, half the students are white, even though only a fifth of the city's population are.

ECONOMIST: Brazil��s unfinished battle for racial democracy

Today is the third day of our focus on Brazil, and it brings us to the city of Salvador, the capital of Bahia state.

FORBES: A Week in Brazil, Pt. 3: Salvador

Salvador, Cachoeira (state of Bahia), Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte will host the meetings.

UNESCO: OFFICE IN BRASILIA

Later this week Margaret will take us to the village of Cairu and to Salvador, in the Brazilian state of Bahia.

FORBES: A Week in Brazil, Pt. 1

More commonly now you just have regular folk going on cultural tourism vacations, and they really discovered the African cultural center of cities like Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia, which is famous as being one of the most rich cities in African cultural heritage in the Americas.

NPR: Afro-Brazilian, African-American Ties