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Mangueira samba school parades in the Sambadrome in the 1998 Carnival in Rio.

A Samba school parades in the Sambadrome in the 2004 Carnival.

The Samba schools (Escolas de samba in Portuguese) are samba clubs organised in the early half of the 20th century in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They are neighbourhood associations that today put on spectacular Carnival parades.

The most spectacular parade takes place in the Rio de Janeiro Sambadrome, with other major parades taking place in São Paulo and others cities of the southern and southeastern Brazil. These parades are sumptuous and attract tourists from all over the world.

Samba schools, which started off first in Rio de Janeiro in 1928, have evolved around the centerpiece event of the Rio Carnaval. The schools parade down a lane lined with grandstands, thousands of members per school dressed in coordinated costumes, dancing a rehearsed samba routine to original music. Each school's presentation has a central theme, such as a historical event, a famous person or a native Brazilian legend. The samba song must be developed around the theme, and the parade organised by each school must detail the theme through costumes, paintings or papier-mache sculpture.

Each samba school rehearses all year round for this event and all its members take part in the rehearsals, whether experts or not. It is a place where people who always wanted to write a song, play a percussion instrument or choreograph a dance will have their opportunity. Unlike the Rose Parade, which has largely been taken over by high-budget professionals, the samba parade is the work of neighbourhood communities working together. Much more than musical groups, they are in fact, neighborhood associations that cater for a variety of community needs (such as educational and health care resources) in a country with grinding poverty and poor social safety net.

First is the front line (the comissão de frente), which consists of around ten people who have to introduce the samba school's theme. Other than that, there is no rule concerning the order of the different elements of a samba school. Its main components are:

• The master of ceremonies and flag bearer: a couple, sometimes dressed in royal eighteenth or nineteenth-century attire, who dance in a graceful, composed manner. The flag bearer displays the flag of the samba school. The rich costumes that the couple wear are a mark of the intense dialogues between cultures provided by the Carnival in Rio.
• The Baianas (ala de baianas), which may include over one hundred older Afro-Brazilian women stereotypically dressed to represent the women from Bahia who sold goods in the streets of Rio during the 19th century.
• The drum section (bateria) which consists of a few hundred men playing in rows. Instruments include a variety of drums, tambourines, and rattles.
• The opulent floats.

In smaller form, the samba parade has made its way around the world, with a yearly parades in Japan, Denmark, London (Notting Hill Carnival), Finland, and the United States (Mardi Gras). These are much less elaborate affairs than in Rio, but they represent the same sense of fun and community spirit.

• GRES Acadêmicos do Grande Rio
• GRES Acadêmicos do Salgueiro
• GRES Beija-Flor de Nilópolis
• GRES Caprichosos de Pilares
• GRES Estação Primeira de Mangueira
• GRES Estácio de Sá
• GRES Imperatriz Leopoldinense
• GRES Império Serrano
• GRES Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel
• GRES Portela
• GRES Rocinha
• GRES Unidos da Tijuca
• GRES Unidos de Vila Isabel
• GRES Unidos do Porta da Pedra
• GRES Unidos do Viradouro
• LIESA (Samba Schools League)

• Bateria
• Wikihost.org Sambistas

• Rio de Janeiro Samba Schools League (Portuguese)
• São Paulo Samba Schools League (Portuguese)
• Samba Groups outside Brazil