Mardi Gras midnight before Ash Wednesday. In earlier times, parades were held on New Year's Day. Other cities famous for Mardi Gras celebrations include Rio de Janeiro; Barranquilla, Colombia; George Town, Cayman Islands; Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; Quebec City, Quebec, Canada; and Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico. Carnival is an important celebration in Anglican and Catholic European nations. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the week before Ash Wednesday is called "Shrovetide", ending on Shrove Tuesday. It has its popular celebratory aspects, as well. Pancakes are a traditional food. Pancakes and related fried breads or pastries made with sugar, fat, and eggs
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