Sudeste

The Southeast Region of Brazil ( ) is composed of the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It is the richest region of the country, responsible for approximately 53% of the Brazilian GDP (2022)
, as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais are the three richest states of Brazil, the top three Brazilian states in terms of GDP. The Southeast of Brazil also has the highest GDP per capita among all Brazilian regions.

The Southeast region accounts for about 44% of Brazil's total population, leading the country in population, urban population, population density, vehicles, industries, universities, airports, ports, highways, hospitals, schools, houses and many other areas.

Geography

São Paulo

Heart of the largest continued remnant of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, the Ribeira Valley is a Natural Heritage of Humanity, granted heritage as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. One of the biggest attractions is the biologic and ecosystems diversity, where approximately 400 species of birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals live. The Alto Ribeira Tourist State Park (PETAR) is paradise for ecotourists, for its enormous diversity in geologic formations, among grottos and caves, rivers and waterfalls. There are currently 454 caves registered by the Brazilian Society of Speleology (SBE) in the State of São Paulo, all at the Ribeira Valley. The 280 caves located at PETAR represent the biggest concentration of caves in Brazil.

Minas Gerais

The landscape of the State is marked by mountains, valleys and caverns. In the Serra do Cipó, Sete Lagoas, Cordisburgo and Lagoa Santa, the caves and waterfalls. Minas Gerais is the source of some of the biggest rivers in Brazil, most notably the São Francisco, the Paraná and to a lesser extent, the Rio Doce. The state also holds many hydroelectric power plants, including Furnas dam. Some of the highest peaks in Brazil are in the mountain ranges in the southern part of the state, such as Serra da Mantiqueira and Serra do Cervo, which mark the border between Minas and its neighbors São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The most notable one is the Pico da Bandeira, the third highest mountain in Brazil at 2890 m, standing on the border with Espírito Santo state. The state also has huge reserves of iron and sizeable reserves of gold and gemstones, including emerald, topaz and aquamarine mines.

Rio de Janeiro

The state is part of the Mata Atlântica biome, and its topography comprises both mountains and plains, located between the Mantiqueira Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. Its coast is carved by the bays of Guanabara, Sepetiba and Ilha Grande.
There are prominent slopes near the ocean, also featuring diverse environments, such as restinga vegetation, bays, lagoons and tropical forests.
Rio de Janeiro is the smallest state in the Southeast macroregion and one of the smallest in Brazil. It has, however, the third longest coastline in the country (second only to Bahia's and Maranhão's), extending 635 kilometers.

Espírito Santo

With a 46.180 square kilometers, it is about the size of Estonia, or half the size of Portugal, and has a variety of habitats including coastal plains, lakes, mountain forest, mangroves and many others.
The main river in the state is the Doce. Other important river basins include the Santa Maria River Basin which is the northern branch of rivers which join the sea at Vitoria, and Jucu River Basin which flows into the sea at roughly the same place, but corresponds to the southern branch (which seems to come out of Vitoria). Espírito Santo's climate is tropical along the coast, with dry winters and rainy summers. North of Doce River it's generally drier and also hot. In the mountainous regions in the south and south west of the state, the tropical climate is strongly influenced by altitude, and the average temperatures are colder.
The state can be divided into two areas: the low lying coastline and the highland area known as ''Serra'' (where one can find the 2.890 m Pico da Bandeira mountain), which is part of the larger Serra do Caparaó, the Caparaó Mountain Range. In the map to the right it is in the gray area in the extreme southwest of the state, and is shared with Minas Gerais.

Demographics

Largest cities

Racial groups

Economy

Agriculture

The main agricultural products grown are:
* coffee (85% of the country's production, which is the world's largest producer);
* sugarcane (65% of the country's production, which is the world's largest producer);
* orange (85% of the country's production, which is the world's largest producer);
* lemon (80% of the country's production, which is the fifth largest producer in the world);
* peanut (90% of the country's production, which is the 14th largest producer in the world);
* banana (35% of the country's production, which is the seventh largest producer in the world);
* sorghum (30% of national production, the country being the seventh largest producer);
* persimmon (70% of national production, the country being the 6th largest producer in the world);
* tomato (44% of national production, the country being the 10th largest producer);
* tangerine (60% of national production, the country being the 6th largest producer in the world);
* papaya (40% of national production, the country being the 2nd largest producer in the world);
* pineapple (27% of national production, the country being the 3rd world producer);
* cassava (13% of national production, the country being the 5th world producer).
The region still produces considerable amounts of:
* bean (more than 20% of national production, the country being the 3rd world producer);
* soy (7% of the country's production, which is the largest producer in the world);
* potato, carrot and strawberry (more than 50% of the country's production).

Livestock

The livestock also has great prominence in the region.

The Southeast is the second national producer of milk, with 34.2%, slightly losing compared to the South Region, which produces 35.7%. The southeast has the largest herd of cows milked: 30.4% of the total of 17.1 million existing in Brazil. The highest productivity, however, is that of the Southern Region, with an average of 3,284 liters per cow per year, which is why it has led the milk production ranking since 2015. Minas Gerais is the main milk-producing state in Brazil with the largest it is also effective for milked cows, responsible for 26.6% of production and 20.0% of all animals in milk. The municipality of Patos de Minas was the second largest producer in 2017, with 191.3 million liters of milk.

Poultry farming and egg production are the most important in the country. Flocks of poultry, according to IBGE, include chickens, roosters, hens and chicks. In 2018, the South region, with an emphasis on the creation of chickens for slaughter, was responsible for almost half of the Brazilian total (46.9%). Paraná only represented 26.2%. However, the situation is reversed when it comes to chickens. The first region in the ranking was the Southeast, with 38.9% of the country's total capital. A total of 246.9 million hens was estimated for 2018. The state of São Paulo was responsible for 21.9%. The national production of chicken eggs was 4.4 billion dozen in 2018. The Southeast region was responsible for 43.8% of the total produced. The state of São Paulo was the largest national producer (25.6%), with a total of 16.8 million birds. The Southeast is responsible for 64%, highlighting São Paulo (24.6%) and Espírito Santo (21.0%).

Mining

In mineral production, in 2017, Minas Gerais was the country's largest producer of iron (277 million tons worth R $37.2 billion), gold (29.3 tons for a value of R $3.6 billion), zinc (400 thousand tons for a value of R $351 million) and niobium (in the form of hydrochloride) (131 thousand tons for a value of R $254 million). In addition, Minas was the second largest producer of aluminum (bauxite) (1.47 million tons at a value of R $105 million), third of manganese (296 thousand tons to a value of R $32 million) and 5th of tin (206 tons worth R $4.7 million). Minas Gerais had 47.19% of the value of the production of minerals marketed in Brazil (first place), with R $41.7 billion. The state has the largest production of various gemstones in the country. In aquamarine, Minas Gerais produces the most valuable stones in the world. In diamond, Brazil was the world's largest producer of diamonds from 1730 to 1870, mining occurred for the first time in the Serra da Canastra, region of Diamantina, even lowering the price of stone in everyone due to excess production. Minas Gerais continues to extract diamonds, in addition to having larger or smaller scale productions of agate, emerald, garnet, jasper, amethyst, and sapphire. Topaz and tourmaline stand out. Imperial Topaz, a valued variety of topaz, is only found in Ouro Preto. Brazil is the world's leading producer of topaz. It is also one of the world's largest tourmaline producers.

Industry

In the Southeast region, the industrialization of the country began, making the transformation industry the main source of income and work in its states. The state of São Paulo became the largest industrial park in South America.

The Southeast Region has 53% of the industrial GDP of Brazil.

The main industrial activities in the region are:

* Iron and steel industry and metallurgy: It's in this region that the first industry of this type is located, the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional, in the city of Volta Redonda, due to its proximity to a large area of iron mining, the so-called "iron quadrilateral", in the state of Minas Gerais. The Usiminas, in Ipatinga, which today is the largest crude steel producer in the country, and the Companhia Siderúrgica de Tubarão, in Vitória, Espírito Santo, are also installed in the region. The Southeast Region produces around 90% of the country's steel.

In Brazil, the automobile sector represents around 22% of industrial GDP. The Greater ABC Region, in São Paulo, is the first center and the largest automobile center in Brazil. When the country's manufacturing was practically restricted to ABC, the State represented 74.8% of Brazilian production in 1990. In 2017, this index decreased to 46.6%, and in 2019, to 40.1%, due to a phenomenon of internalization of the production of vehicles in Brazil, driven by factors such as unions, which made excessive labor and payroll charges, discouraged investment and favored the search for new cities. The development of the ABC cities helped curb appeal, due to rising real estate costs and higher density of residential areas. Sul Fluminense (Rio de Janeiro) was already the second largest pole in 2017, but in 2019 it fell to fourth place, behind Paraná (15%) and Minas Gerais (10.7%). In the Southeast there are factories of GM, Volkswagen, Fiat, Ford, Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Land Rover, Citroen / Peugeot, Scania and Iveco.

In the production of tractors, in 2017, the main manufacturers in Brazil were John Deere, New Holland, Massey Ferguson, Valtra, Case IH and the Brazilian Agrale. They all have factories in the southeast, basically in São Paulo.

* Petroleum: Almost all of Brazil's oil and natural gas is extracted in the Southeast, mainly in Rio de Janeiro, but also in Espírito Santo and São Paulo. Most of the oil refining is also carried out in the region. Rio de Janeiro presents great importance in oil prospecting, which São Paulo has a great importance in the refining activity, being located in that state the main refineries of the country, among them, the REPLAN, the main of the country. In addition to oil, there is the extraction of natural gas from the Santos maritime basin and, until a few years ago, there was the extraction of bitumen in the Paraíba river valley.
* High technology: The so-called "Brazilian silicon valley" is located in that region, made up of the cities of São Paulo, São José dos Campos, São Carlos and Campinas. These four cities concentrate industries of computing, telecommunications, electronics and other activities involving high technology; in addition to having important research centers and important universities, such as the "Technological Institute of Aeronautics" - ITA, in São José dos Campos. Brazil has two large production centers for electronic products, located in the Metropolitan Region of Campinas, in the State of São Paulo, and in the Manaus Free Trade Zone, in the State of Amazonas. There are large internationally renowned technology companies, as well as part of the industries that participate in their supply chain. The country also has other smaller centers, such as the municipalities of São José dos Campos and São Carlos, in the state of São Paulo. In Campinas there are industrial units of groups such as General Electric, Samsung, HP and Foxconn, a manufacturer of Apple and Dell. São José dos Campos, focuses on the aviation industry. This is where the headquarters of Embraer, a Brazilian company that is the third largest aircraft manufacturer in the world, after Boeing and Airbus, is located. In the production of cell phones and other electronic products, Samsung produces in Campinas; LG produces in Taubaté; Flextronics, which produces Motorola cell phones, produces in Jaguariúna; and Semp-TCL produces in Cajamar. In Santa Rita do Sapucaí, Minas Gerais, 8 thousand jobs are linked to the sector, with more than 120 companies. Most produce equipment for the telecommunications industry, such as decoders, including those used in the transmission of the digital television system.

In 2011, Brazil had the sixth largest chemical industry in the world, with net sales of $157 billion, or 3.1% of world sales. At that time, there were 973 factories of chemical products for industrial use. They are concentrated in the Southeast Region, mainly in São Paulo. In 2018, the Brazilian chemical sector was the eighth largest in the world, representing 10% of the national industrial GDP and 2.5% of the total GDP. In 2020, imports will occupy 43% of domestic demand for chemical products. Since 2008, the average use of capacity in the Brazilian chemical industry has been at a level considered low, ranging between 70 and 83%.

In pharmaceutical Industry, most of the companies in Brazil have been established in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro for a long time. In 2019, the situation was that, due to the tax advantages offered in states such as Pernambuco, Goiás and Minas Gerais, companies were leaving RJ and SP and going to these states. In 2017, Brazil was considered the sixth largest pharmaceutical market in the world. Drug sales in pharmacies reached around R $57 billion (US$17.79 billion) in the country. The pharmaceutical market in Brazil had 241 regulated and authorized laboratories for the sale of medicines. Of these, the majority (60%) have national capital. Multinational companies had approximately 52.44% of the market, with 34.75% in commercialized packaging. Brazilian laboratories represent 47.56% of the market in sales and 65.25% in cases sold. In the distribution of drug sales by state, São Paulo ranked first: São Paulo's pharmaceutical industry had a turnover of R $53.3 billion, 76.8% of total sales throughout the country. The companies that benefited the most from the sale of drugs in the country in 2015 were EMS, Hypermarcas (NeoQuímica), Sanofi (Medley), Novartis, Aché, Eurofarma, Takeda

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