Portela has won the most Rio de Janeiro carnival championships among samba schools.
Founded in 1923 in the Oswaldo Cruz neighborhood, Portela became one of the defining institutions of Rio’s samba tradition. Its blue-and-white colors and eagle symbol are especially recognizable. The school’s long record includes a dominant period in the mid-20th century, when it repeatedly won the principal parade competition.
Portela’s championship total is commonly given as 22 titles, though historical summaries can differ when they classify disputed or shared results differently. That accounting detail is why reliable references may present slightly different totals while still identifying Portela as the record holder.
Mangueira, Beija-Flor and Salgueiro are also major championship-winning schools, so they are frequent mix-ups in this question. Portela’s record refers to titles in Rio’s top-level carnival competition, not to the number of years it has participated or to victories in every parade category.