When I visit amazon.com, the first section of the address always comes
up as http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/.  Now Óbidos is a town in
Portugal.  (In case your browser isn't rendering correctly, the
character before "bidos" is a capital "O" with an acute accent mark). 
Is this a coincidence or did the good folks at Amazon like
the medieval flavor of the town so much they decided to incorporate it
on every link on their site?

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Clarification of Question by nelson-ga on 14 Dec 2003 00:49 PST

Of course the title should read "Amazon.com", not "Amazaon.com". 
(Which, by the way, seems to lead to a Casino site.  I guess gamblers
must mis-type a lot.)

Hello.

Another internet user was curious about the meaning of "obidos" and
emailed Amazon.com.  Amazon wouldn't reveal the meaning, but here's an
explanation from another user:

"Amazon is apparently having a little fun with you.  There is no
secret as to the origin of "Obidos", and there are certainly more than
a handful of engineers who know what it means!
All of the servers at Amazon are given names of cities along the
Amazon river.  Obidos is a port city on the Amazon river in Brazil,
and the name of the machine that runs the book database.  Simple as
that."
http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=48202&ixReplies=13

The same explanation is in this newsgroup discussion:
"Obidos is a major port on the Amazon river."
source: "Subject: Re: Obidos, was: Re: Amazon book URL shortcut"
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=3910a92a%40amhnt2.amherst.edu

And according to someone who implies that he writes code for Amazon.com:

"Obidos is actually a custom layer on top of the web server that
parses requests and builds web pages. Not all pages are served by
obidos, but many are.
The city of Obidos is at the bottleneck of the Amazon River, hence its
significance. (I contribute bits of code to obidos. I think I?m
contractually obligated to kill you now that I?ve told you.).
Posted by: Dan S. on March 21, 2002 02:40 PM "
http://q.queso.com/archives/000807

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More about the port of Obidos in Brazil:

Brazil (Amazon) Obidos, from pacificislandtravel.com
http://www.pacificislandtravel.com/south_america/brazil/about_destin/obidos.html

Port of Obidos
http://www.cdp.com.br/porto_obidos-engl.htm

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Undoubtedly, of course, the Obidos in Brazil has a connection to the
Obidos in Portugal as the Portuguese ruled Brazil for many years.  In
fact, it seems that the Count of Obidos, the nephew of the King of
Portugal, was made Viceroy of Brazil in 1663.
source: page 45 of Colonial Brazil by Leslie Bethell (read using
"search inside" on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521349257/

--------

search terms:
amazon, obidos, named after
obidos, brazil, river, amazon

I hope this helps.

Thank you.  Being of Portuguese descent, I probably should have been
smart enough to figure out the Amazon River/Portuguese town name
connection myself.  Guess I was too Luso-centric.

Thank you for the tip.
-juggler