Torres

Torres is a Brazilian municipality located at the northernmost point of the Atlantic coast in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city's landscape is distinguished as the only beach in Rio Grande do Sul featuring prominent rocky cliffs along the shoreline, and it is home to the state's sole maritime island, Ilha dos Lobos.

The area now occupied by the city has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years, with physical evidence in the form of middens and other archaeological findings. In the 17th century, during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil, the region's location within a narrowing of the southern coastal plain made it a mandatory passage for tropeiros and other Portuguese-Brazilian explorers and adventurers traveling south along the coast—the only alternative route was over the Vacaria plateau. These travelers sought the free-roaming cattle herds multiplying in the southern pampas and hunted indigenous peoples to enslave them. Many settled in the area, becoming ranchers and small-scale farmers. Due to its coastal hills, the area was soon recognized for its strategic value as a vantage point for observation and control, holding military and political significance in the Portuguese expansion over Spanish territory. A fortification was established there in the late 18th century, but it was soon dismantled once the conquest was secured.