Lent excess before Lent begins. Some of the most famous are the Carnival of Barranquilla, the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Carnival of Venice, Cologne Carnival, the New Orleans Mardi Gras, the Rio de Janeiro carnival, and the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival. The day immediately preceding Lent is variously called Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday"), Pancake Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday. Sometimes, it is the peak of the pre-Lenten festival, while sometimes it is largely occupied with preparations for Lent. The observances vary from culture to culture, and even from town to town. Originally, in Lebanon and Syria, the last Thursday
Rio de Janeiro themselves as ⅓ European, ⅓ African and ⅓ Amerindian before the tests, and yet their ancestry on average reached 80% European. Other studies showed similar results Rio de Janeiro is the second largest city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and has a rapidly expanding population and rapidly growing area due to rapid urbanization. The Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, according to 2009 research from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (known as ), ranks first in Brazil in the percentage of Catholics (51.1%) living there. Rio de Janeiro city also ranks fifth among Brazilian state capital cities in the percentage of its population