Brazil 3

Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the seventh-largest by population, with over 212 million people. The country is a federation composed of 26 states and a Federal District, which hosts the capital, Brasília. Its most populous city is São Paulo, followed by Rio de Janeiro. Brazil has the most Portuguese speakers in the world and is the only country in the Americas where Portuguese is an official language.

Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of . Covering roughly half of South America's land area, it borders all other countries and territories on the continent except Ecuador and Chile. Brazil encompasses a wide range of tropical and subtropical landscapes, as well as wetlands, savannas, plateaus, and low mountains. It contains most of the Amazon basin, including the world’s largest river system and most extensive virgin tropical forest. Brazil has diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats. The country ranks first among 17 megadiverse countries, with its natural heritage being the subject of significant global interest, as environmental degradation (through processes such as deforestation) directly affect global issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss.

Brazil was inhabited by various indigenous peoples prior to the landing of Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500. It was claimed and settled by Portugal, which imported enslaved Africans to work on plantations. Brazil remained a colony until 1815, when it was elevated to the rank of a united kingdom with Portugal after the transfer of the Portuguese court to Rio de Janeiro. Prince Pedro of Braganza declared the country's independence in 1822, establishing the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Brazil's first constitution in 1824 established a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress, and enshrined principles such as freedom of religion and the press, but retained slavery, which was gradually abolished throughout the 19th century until its final abolition in 1888. Brazil became a presidential republic following a military coup d'état in 1889. An armed revolution in 1930 put an end to the First Republic and brought Getúlio Vargas to power. While initially committing to democratic governance, Vargas assumed dictatorial powers following a self-coup in 1937, marking the beginning of the Estado Novo. Democracy was restored after Vargas' ousting in 1945. An authoritarian military dictatorship emerged in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, enacted in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic.

Brazil is a regional and middle power and rising global power. It is an emerging, upper-middle income economy and newly industrialized country, with one of the 10 largest economies in the world in both nominal and PPP terms, the largest economy in Latin America and the Southern Hemisphere, and the largest share of wealth in South America. With a complex and highly diversified economy, Brazil is one of the world's major or primary exporters of various agricultural goods, mineral resources, and manufactured products. Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, G4, Mercosur, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States, and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries; it is also an observer state of the Arab League and a major non-NATO ally of the United States.

Etymology

The word ''Brazil'' probably comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called ''pau-brasil'', with the word ''brasil'' commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from ''brasa'' ('ember') and the suffix ''-il'' (from ''-iculum'' or ''-ilium''). It has alternatively been suggested that this is a folk etymology for a word for the plant related to an Arabic or Asian word for a red plant. As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was highly valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi) along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders in return for assorted European consumer goods.

The official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross" (''Terra da Santa Cruz''), but European sailors and merchants commonly called it the "Land of Brazil" (''Terra do Brasil'') because of the brazilwood trade. Popular usage eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name. Some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots". In the Guarani language, Brazil is called "Pindorama", meaning "land of the palm trees".

History

Pre-Cabraline era

Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais, and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years. The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to over 8,000 years ago (6000 BC). The pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the region supported a complex prehistoric culture. The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from AD 400 to 1400, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, and complex social formations such as chiefdoms.

Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of present day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people, mostly semi-nomadic, who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. The population comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups (e.g., the Tupis, Guaranis, Gês, and Arawaks). The Tupi people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups were marked by wars that arose from differences in culture, language and moral beliefs. These wars also involved large-scale military actions on land and water, with cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war. While heredity had some weight, leadership was a status more won over time than assigned in succession ceremonies and conventions. Slavery among the indigenous groups had a different meaning than it had for Europeans, since it originated from a diverse socioeconomic organization, in which asymmetries were translated into kinship relations.

Portuguese colonization

Following the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, the land now called Brazil was claimed for the Portuguese Empire on 22 April 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral.Boxer, p. 98. The Portuguese encountered indigenous peoples divided into several ethnic societies, most of whom spoke languages of the Tupi–Guarani family and fought among themselves.Boxer, p. 100. Though the first settlement was founded in 1532, colonization effectively began in 1534, when King John III of Portugal divided the territory into the fifteen private and autonomous captaincies.Skidmore, p. 27.

However, the decentralized and unorganized captaincy system proved problematic, and in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the Governorate General of Brazil in the city of Salvador, which became the capital of a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South America. In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other.

By the mid-16th century, cane sugar had become Brazil's most important export, while slaves purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa in the slave market of Western Africa (not only those from Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique), had become its largest import, to cope with sugarcane plantations, due to increasing international demand for Brazilian sugar.Boxer, p. 102. Brazil received more than 2.8 million slaves from Africa between the years 1500 and 1800.

By the end of the 17th century, sugar exports began to decline and the discovery of gold by bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new backbone of the colony's economy, fostering a gold rush which attracted thousands of new settlers to Brazil from Portugal and all Portuguese colonies around the world. This increased level of immigration in turn caused some conflicts between newcomers and old settlers.

Portuguese expeditions known as ''bandeiras'' gradually expanded Brazil's original colonial frontiers in South America to its approximately current borders. In this era, other European powers tried to colonize parts of Brazil, in incursions that the Portuguese had to fight, notably the French in Rio during the 1560s, in Maranhão during the 1610s, and the Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco, during the Dutch–Portuguese War, after the end of Iberian Union.

The Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil had two objectives that would ensure colonial order and the monopoly of Portugal's wealthiest and largest colony: to keep under control and eradicate all forms of slave rebellion and resistance, such as the Quilombo of Palmares, and to repress all movements for autonomy or independence, such as the Minas Gerais Conspiracy.

Elevation to kingdom

In late 1807, Spanish and Napoleonic forces threatened the security of continental Portugal, causing Prince Regent John, in the name of Queen Maria I, to move the royal court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.Boxer, p. 213 There they established some of Brazil's first financial institutions, such as its local stock exchanges and its National Bank, additionally ending the Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian trade and opening Brazil's ports to other nations. In 1809, in retaliation for being forced into exile, the Prince Regent ordered the conquest of French Guiana.

With the end of the Peninsular War in 1814, the courts of Europe demanded that Queen Maria I and Prince Regent John return to Portugal, deeming it unfit for the head of an ancient European monarchy to reside in a colony. In 1815, to justify continuing to live in Brazil, where the royal court had thrived for six years, the Crown established the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, thus creating a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state. However, the leadership in Portugal, resentful of the new status of its larger colony, continued to demand the return of the court to Lisbon (see Liberal Revolution of 1820). In 1821, acceding to the demands of revolutionaries who had taken the city of Porto, John VI departed for Lisbon. There he swore an oath to the new constitution, leaving his son, Prince Pedro de Alcântara, as Regent of the Kingdom of Brazil.

Independent empire

Tensions between Portuguese and Brazilians increased and the Portuguese Cortes, guided by the new political regime imposed by the Liberal Revolution, tried to re-establish Brazil as a colony. The Brazilians refused to yield, and Prince Pedro decided to side with them, declaring the country's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822. A month later, Prince Pedro was proclaimed the first Emperor of Brazil, with the royal title of Dom Pedro I, resulting in the founding of the Empire of Brazil.

The Brazilian War of Independence, which had already begun along this process, spread through the northern, northeastern regions and in the Cisplatina province. The last Portuguese soldiers surrendered on 8 March 1824; Portugal officially recognized Brazilian independence on 29 August 1825.

On 7 April 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberals and conservatives, including an attempt of republican secession and unreconciled to the way that absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI, Pedro I departed for Portugal to reclaim his daughter's crown after abdicating the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-year-old son and heir (Dom Pedro II).

As the new Emperor could not exert his constitutional powers until he came of age, a regency was set up by the General Assembly. In the absence of a charismatic figure who could represent a moderate face of power, a series of localized rebellions took place, such as the Cabanagem in Grão-Pará, the Malê Revolt in Salvador, the Balaiada (Maranhão), the Sabinada (Bahia), and the Ragamuffin War, which began in Rio Grande do Sul and was supported by Giuseppe Garibaldi. These emerged from the provinces' dissatisfaction with the central power, coupled with old and latent social tensions peculiar to a vast, slaveholding and newly independent nation state. This period of internal political and social upheaval, which included the Praieira revolt in Pernambuco, was overcome only at the end of the 1840s, years after the end of the regency, which occurred with the premature coronation of Pedro II in 1841.

During the last phase of the monarchy, internal political debate centered on the issue of slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in 1850, as a result of the British Aberdeen Act and the Eusébio de Queirós Law, but only in May 1888, after a long process of internal mobilization and debate for an ethical and legal dismantling of slavery in the country, was the institution formally abolished with the approval of the Golden Law.

The foreign-affairs policies of the monarchy dealt with issues pertaining Brazil's neighboring countries in the Southern Cone. Long after the Cisplatine War that resulted in the independence of Uruguay, Brazil won three international wars during the 58-year reign of Pedro II: the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the devastating Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian history.

Although there was no desire among the majority of Brazilians to change the country's form of government, on 15 November 1889, in disagreement with the majority of the Imperial Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites, the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup. A few days later, the national flag was replaced with a new design that included the national motto "''Ordem e Progresso''", influenced by positivism. 15 November is now Republic Day, a national holiday.

Early republic

The early republican government was a military dictatorship, with the army dominating affairs both in Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled by those in power. Not until 1894, following an economic crisis and a military one, did civilians take power, remaining there until October 1930.

In this first republican period, Brazil maintained a relative balance characterized by a success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries, only broken by the Acre War (1899–1902) and its involvement in World War I (1914–1918), followed by a failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the League of Nations; Internally, from the crisis of ''Encilhamento'' and the Navy Revolts, a prolonged cycle of financial, political and social instability began until the 1920s, keeping the country besieged by various rebellions, both civilian and military.

Little by little, a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an extent that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas, supported by most of the military, successfully led the Revolution of 1930. Vargas and the military were supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed down Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states' governors with his own supporters.

In the 1930s, three attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power failed. The first was the Constitutionalist Revolution in 1932, led by São Paulo's oligarchy. The second was a Communist uprising in November 1935, and the last one a '' putsch'' attempt by local fascists in May 1938. The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which Congress transferred more power to the executive branch. The 1937 ''coup d'état'' resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election and formalized Vargas as dictator, beginning the Estado Novo era. During this period, government brutality and censorship of the press increased.

During World War II, Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country suffered retaliation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic, and, therefore, entered the war on the allied side. In addition to its participation in the battle of the Atlantic, Brazil also sent an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign.

With the Allied victory in 1945 and the end of the fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas' position became untenable, and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with democracy reinstated by the same army that had ended it 15 years earlier. Vargas committed suicide in August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950.

Several brief interim governments followed Vargas' suicide. Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory stance towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises. The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably, but his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of Brasília, inaugurated in 1960. Kubitschek's successor, Jânio Quadros, resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office. His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military dictatorship.

Military dicatorship

The new regime was intended to be transitory, but gradually closed in on itself and became a full dictatorship with the promulgation of the Fifth Institutional Act in 1968.Gaspari, ''A Ditadura Envergonhada'', p. 35. Oppression was not limited to those who resorted to guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society, inside and outside the country through "Operation Condor". Like other authoritarian regimes, due to an economic boom, known as the "economic miracle", the Brazilian military dictatorship reached a peak in popularity in the early 1970s.

Slowly, however, the wear and tear of years of dictatorial power had not slowed the repression, even after the defeat of the leftist guerrillas. The inability to deal with the economic crises of the period and popular pressure made an redemocratization policy inevitable, which from the regime side was led by Generals Ernesto Geisel and Golbery do Couto e Silva. With the enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1979, Brazil began a slow return to democracy, which was completed during the 1980s.

Contemporary era

Civilians returned to power in 1985 when José Sarney assumed the presidency. He became unpopular during his tenure through failure to control the economic crisis and hyperinflation he inherited from the military regime. Sarney's unsuccessful government led to the election in 1989 of the almost-unknown Fernando Collor, who was subsequently impeached by the National Congress in 1992. Collor was succeeded by his vice-president, Itamar Franco, who appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso as Minister of Finance. In 1994, Cardoso devised a highly successful Plano Real that, after decades of failed economic plans made by previous governments attempting to curb hyperinflation, finally stabilized the Brazilian economy. Cardoso won the 1994 election, and again in 1998.

The peaceful transition of power from Cardoso to his main opposition leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazilian presidential election, 2002, elected in 2002 and Brazilian presidential election, 2006, re-elected in 2006), was seen as proof that Brazil had achieved a long-sought political stability. However, sparked by indignation and frustrations accumulated over decades from corruption, Police brutality by country#Brazil, police brutality, inefficiencies of the political The Establishment, establishment and public service, 2013 protests in Brazil, numerous peaceful protests erupted in Brazil in the middle of the first term of Dilma Rousseff, who had succeeded Lula after winning election Brazilian presidential election, 2010, in 2010 and again Brazilian presidential election, 2014, in 2014 by narrow margins.

Rousseff Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, was impeached by the Brazilian Congress in 2016, halfway into her second term, and replaced by her vice-president Michel Temer, who assumed full presidential powers after Rousseff's impeachment was accepted on 31 August. Large street 2015–16 protests in Brazil, protests for and against her took place during the impeachment process. The charges against her were fueled by political and economic crises along with evidence of involvement with politicians from all the primary political parties. In 2017, the Supreme Court requested the investigation of 71 Brazilian lawmakers and nine ministers of President Michel Temer's cabinet who were allegedly linked to the Operation Car Wash, Petrobras corruption scandal. President Temer himself was also accused of Corruption in Brazil, corruption.

In the fiercely disputed 2018 Brazilian general election, 2018 elections, the controversial conservative candidate Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party (Brazil), Social Liberal Party (PSL) was elected president, winning in the second round against Fernando Haddad, of the Workers' Party (Brazil), Workers Party (PT), with the support of 55.13% of the valid votes. In the early 2020s, Brazil became COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, one of the hardest hit countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, receiving the second-highest death toll worldwide after the United States. In May 2021, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated that he would run for a third term in the 2022 Brazilian general election against Bolsonaro. In October 2022, Lula was in first place in the first round, with 48.43% of the support from the electorate, and received 50.90% of the votes in the second round. On 8 January 2023, a week after Lula's inauguration, a mob of Bolsonaro's supporters 2023 Brazilian Congress attack, attacked Brazil's federal government buildings in the capital, Brasília, after several weeks of unrest.

Geography

Brazil occupies a large area along the eastern coast of South America and includes much of the continent's interior, sharing land borders with Uruguay to the south; Argentina and Paraguay to the southwest; Bolivia and Peru to the west; Colombia to the northwest; and Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and France (French overseas region of French Guiana) to the north. It shares a border with every South American country except Ecuador and Chile.

The Brazilian territory also encompasses a number of oceanic archipelagos, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago, and the islands of Trindade and Martim Vaz. Its size, relief, climate, and natural resources make Brazil geographically diverse. Including its Atlantic islands, Brazil lies between latitudes 6th parallel north, 6°N and 34th parallel south, 34°S, and longitudes 28th meridian west, 28° and 74th meridian west, 74°W.

Brazil is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area, fifth largest country in the world, and third largest in the Americas, with a total area of ,Official Area (In Portuguese)
IBGE: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. Retrieved 8 January 2010. including of water. Brazil is also the longest country in the world, spanning 4,395 km (2,731 mi) from North to South, and the only country in the world that has the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn running through it. It spans four time zones; from UTC-05, UTC−5 comprising the state of Acre (state), Acre and the westernmost portion of Amazonas (Brazilian state), Amazonas, to UTC−04, UTC−4 in the western states, to UTC−03, UTC−3 in the eastern states (the Time in Brazil, national time) and UTC−02, UTC−2 in the List of islands of Brazil, Atlantic islands.

Climate

The climate of Brazil comprises a wide range of weather conditions across a large area and varied topography, but most of the country is tropical. According to the Köppen climate classification, Köppen system, Brazil hosts six major climatic subtypes: Desert climate, desert, Tropical rainforest climate, equatorial, tropical climate, tropical, Semi-arid climate, semiarid, Oceanic climate, oceanic and Humid subtropical climate, subtropical. The different climatic conditions produce environments ranging from Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, equatorial rainforests in the north and semiarid deserts in the northeast, to temperate coniferous forests in the south and tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands, tropical savannas in central Brazil.

In Brazil, forest cover is around 59% of the total land area, equivalent to 496,619,600 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 588,898,000 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 485,396,000 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 11,223,600 hectares (ha). Of the naturally regenerating forest, 44% was reported to be primary forest (consisting of native tree species with no clearly visible indications of human activity) and around 30% of the forest area was found within protected areas. For 2015, 56% of the forest area was reported to be under State ownership, public ownership and 44% Private property, private ownership.

Many regions have starkly different microclimates. An equatorial climate characterizes much of northern Brazil. There is no real dry season, but there are some variations in the period of the year when most rain falls. Temperatures average , with more significant temperature variation between night and day than between seasons. Over central Brazil, rainfall is more seasonal, characteristic of a savanna climate. This region is as extensive as the Amazon basin but has a very different climate as it lies farther south at a higher altitude. In the interior northeast, seasonal rainfall is even more extreme. South of Bahia, near the coasts, and more southerly most of the state of São Paulo, the distribution of rainfall changes, with rain falling throughout the year. The south enjoys subtropical conditions, with cool winters and average annual temperatures not exceeding ; winter frosts and Snow in Brazil, snowfall are not rare in the highest areas.

The semiarid climatic region generally receives less than of rain, most of which generally falls in a period of three to five months of the year and occasionally less than this, creating long periods of drought. Brazil's 1877–78 ''Grande Seca'' (Great Drought), the worst in Brazil's history, caused approximately half a million deaths. A similarly devastating drought occurred in 1915. In 2024, for the first time, "a drought has covered all the way from the North to the country’s Southeast". It is the strongest drought in Brazil since the beginning of measurement in the 1950s, covering almost 60% of the country's territory. The drought is linked to deforestation and climate change.

Climate change in Brazil is causing higher temperatures and longer-lasting heatwaves, changing precipitation patterns, more intense wildfires and heightened fire risk. Brazil's hydropower, agriculture and urban water supplies will be affected. Brazil's rainforests, and the Amazon, are particularly at risk to climate change. At worst, large areas of the Amazon River basin could turn into savannah, with severe consequences for global climate and local livelihoods. Extreme weather events like droughts and flash floods are causing annual losses of around R$13 billion (US$2.6 billion), equivalent to 0.1% of the country's 2022 GDP. Climate impacts could exacerbate poverty.

Brazil's List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita, greenhouse gas emissions per person are higher than the global average, and Brazil is among the top 10 List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions, highest emitting countries. Greenhouse gas emissions by Brazil are over 4% of the annual world total. In 2024 Brazil revised its Nationally determined contribution, Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), setting a goal to cut Greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse emissions by 59% to 67% compared to 2005 levels by 2035. It has an indicative target of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060 if the country receives 10 billion dollars per year.

Topography and hydrography

Brazilian topography is also diverse and includes hills, mountains, plains, highlands, and scrublands. Much of the terrain lies between and in elevation. The main upland area occupies most of the southern half of the country. The northwestern parts of the plateau consist of broad, rolling terrain broken by low, rounded hills.

The southeastern section is more rugged, with a complex mass of ridges and mountain ranges reaching elevations of up to . These ranges include the Mantiqueira Mountains, Mantiqueira and Espinhaço Mountains, Espinhaço mountains and the Serra do Mar. In the north, the Guiana Shield, Guiana Highlands form a major drainage divide, separating rivers that flow south into the Amazon Basin from rivers that empty into the Orinoco River system, in Venezuela, to the north. The highest point in Brazil is the Pico da Neblina at , and the lowest is the Atlantic Ocean.

Brazil has a dense and complex system of rivers, one of the world's most extensive, with eight major drainage basins, all of which drain into the Atlantic. Major rivers include the Amazon River, Amazon (the world's largest in terms of water volume), the Paraná River, Paraná and its major tributary the Iguazu River, Iguaçu (which includes the Iguazu Falls), the Rio Negro (Amazon), Negro, São Francisco River, São Francisco, Xingu River, Xingu, Madeira River, Madeira and Tapajós rivers.

Biodiversity and conservation

The wildlife of Brazil comprises all naturally occurring animals, plants, and fungi in the South American country. Home to 60% of the Amazon rainforest, which accounts for approximately one-tenth of all species in the world, Brazil is considered to have the greatest biodiversity of any country on the planet, containing over 70% of all animal and plant species catalogued. Brazil has the most known species of plants (55,000), freshwater fish (3,000) and mammals (over 689). It also ranks third on the list of countries with the most bird species (1,832) and second with the most reptile species (744). The number of fungal species is unknown but is large.Da Silva, M. and D.W. Minter. 1995. ''Fungi from Brazil recorded by Batista and Co-workers''. Mycological Papers 169. CABI, Wallingford, UK. 585 pp. Brazil is second only to Indonesia as the country with the most endemic species.

Brazil's large territory comprises different ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest, recognized as having the greatest biological diversity in the world, with the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado sustaining the greatest biodiversity. In the south, the Araucaria moist forests grow under temperate conditions. The rich wildlife of Brazil reflects the variety of natural habitats. Scientists estimate that the total number of plant and animal species in Brazil could approach four million, mostly invertebrates. Larger mammals include carnivores Cougar, pumas, jaguars, ocelots, rare bush dogs, and foxes, and herbivores peccary, peccaries, tapirs, anteaters, sloths, opossums and armadillos. Deer are plentiful in the south, and many species of New World monkeys are found in the northern rainforests.

More than one-fifth of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has been completely destroyed, and more than 70 mammals are endangered. The threat of extinction comes from several sources, including deforestation and poaching. Extinction is even more problematic in the Atlantic Forest, where nearly 93% of the forest has been cleared. Of the 202 endangered animals in Brazil, 171 are in the Atlantic Forest. The Amazon rainforest has been under direct threat of deforestation since the 1970s because of rapid economic and demographic expansion. Extensive legal and illegal logging destroy forests the size of a small country per year, and with it a diverse series of species through habitat destruction and habitat fragmentation.United States Department of Agriculture, USDA Forest Service website
Forest Service International Programs: Brazil
, retrieved February 2007. Since 1970, over of the Amazon rainforest have been cleared by logging.

In 2017, preserved native vegetation occupied 61% of the Brazilian territory. Agriculture occupied only 8% of the national territory and pastures 19.7%. For comparison, in 2019, although 43% of the entire European continent has forests, only 3% of the total forest area in Europe is of native forest. Brazil has a strong interest in conservation, as its agriculture sector directly depends on its forests.

Government and politics

The form of government is a democratic Federation, federative republic, with a presidential system. The president is both head of state and head of government of the Union and is elected for a four-year term, with the possibility of re-election for a second successive term. The current president is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The president appoints the Minister of State, Ministers of State, who form the Cabinet of Brazil, cabinet and assist in government.

Legislative houses in each political entity are the main source of law in Brazil. The National Congress of Brazil, National Congress is the federation's bicameral legislature, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of Brazil, Federal Senate. Judiciary authorities exercise jurisdictional duties almost exclusively. In 2021, the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index categorized Brazil as a "flawed democracy", ranking 46th in the report, and Freedom House classified it as a Free World, free country at ''Freedom in the World'' report.

The political-administrative organization of the Federative Republic of Brazil comprises the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities. The Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities, are the "spheres of government". The federation is set on five fundamental principles: sovereignty, citizenship, dignity of human beings, the social values of labor and freedom of enterprise, and political pluralism (political theory), pluralism.

The classic tripartite branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial under a checks and balances system) are formally established by the Constitution. The executive and legislative are organized Separation of powers, independently in all three spheres of government, while the judiciary is organized only at the federal and state and Federal District spheres. All members of the executive and legislative branches are directly elected.

For most of its democratic history, Brazil has had a multi-party system, with proportional representation. Voting is Compulsory voting, compulsory for the literate between 18 and 70 years old and optional for illiterates and those between 16 and 18 or beyond 70. The country has around List of political parties in Brazil, 30 registered political parties. Twenty political parties are represented in Congress. It is common for politicians to switch parties, and thus the proportion of congressional seats held by particular parties changes regularly.

Law

Brazilian law is based on the Civil law (legal system), civil law legal system and civil law (legal system), civil law concepts prevail over common law practice. Most of Brazilian law is codified, although non-codified statutes also represent a substantial part, playing a complementary role. Court decisions set out interpretive guidelines; however, they are seldom binding on other specific cases. Doctrinal works and the works of academic jurists have strong influence in law creation and in law cases. Judges and other judicial officials are appointed after passing entry exams.

The legal system is based on the Constitution of Brazil, Federal Constitution, promulgated on 5 October 1988, and the fundamental law of Brazil. All other legislation and court decisions must conform to its rules. , there have been 124 amendments. The highest court is the Supreme Federal Court. States have their own constitutions, which must not contradict the Federal Constitution. Municipalities and the Federal District have "organic laws" (), which act in a similar way to constitutions. Legislative entities are the main source of statutes, although in certain matters judiciary and executive bodies may enact legal norms. Jurisdiction is administered by the judiciary entities, although in rare situations the Federal Constitution allows the Federal Senate to pass on legal judgments. There are also specialized military, labor and Brazilian Election Justice, electoral courts.

Military

The armed forces of Brazil are the List of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel, largest in Latin America by active personnel and the largest in terms of military equipment. The country was considered the 11th largest military power on the planet in 2025. It consists of the Brazilian Army (including the Brazilian Army Aviation, Army Aviation Command), the Brazilian Navy (including the Brazilian Marine Corps, Marine Corps and Brazilian Naval Aviation, Naval Aviation) and the Brazilian Air Force. Brazil's Conscription in Brazil, conscription policy gives it one of the world's largest military forces, estimated at more than 1.6 million Military Reserve, reservists annually. The Air Force is the largest in Latin America and has about 700 crewed aircraft in service and effective about 67,000 personnel.

Numbering close to 236,000 active personnel, the Brazilian Army has the largest number of armored vehicles in South America, including armored transports and battle tank, tanks. The states' Military Police (Brazil), Military Police and the Military Firefighters Corps are designated as auxiliary forces of the Army by the constitution, but are under the control of each state's governor.

Brazil's navy once operated some of the most powerful warships in the world with the two dreadnoughts, sparking a South American dreadnought race, naval arms race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Today, it is a green-water navy, green water force and has a group of specialized elite in retaking ships and naval facilities, GRUMEC, unit specially trained to protect Brazilian oil platforms along its coast. , it is the only navy in Latin America that operates a helicopter carrier, Brazilian aircraft carrier Atlântico, NAM ''Atlântico'' and one of twelve navies in the world to operate or have one under construction.

Foreign policy

Brazil's international relations are based on Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, which establishes Non-interventionism, non-intervention, self-determination, Internationalism (politics), international cooperation and the Peacebuilding, peaceful settlement of conflicts as the guiding principles of Brazil's relationship with other countries and multilateral organizations. According to the Constitution, the President of Brazil, President has ultimate authority over foreign policy, while National Congress of Brazil, Congress is tasked with reviewing and considering all diplomatic nominations and Treaty, international treaties, as well as legislation relating to Brazilian foreign policy.

Brazil's foreign policy is a by-product of the country's position as a regional power in Latin America, a leader among developing countries, and an emerging world power. Brazilian foreign policy has generally been based on the principles of multilateralism, peaceful dispute settlement, and non-intervention in the affairs of other countries. Brazil is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations.

An increasingly well-developed tool of Brazil's foreign policy is providing aid as a donor to other developing countries.Cabral and Weinstock 2010
Brazil: an emerging aid player
(). London: Overseas Development Institute Brazil does not just use its growing economic strength to provide financial aid, but it also provides high levels of expertise and most importantly of all, a quiet non-confrontational diplomacy to improve governance levels. Total aid is estimated to be around $1 billion per year. In addition, Brazil already managed a United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, peacekeeping mission in Haiti ($350 million) and makes in-kind contributions to the World Food Programme ($300 million). The scale of this aid places it on par with China and India. The Brazilian South-South aid has been described as a "global model in waiting".

Law enforcement and crime

In Brazil, the Constitution establishes six different police agencies for law enforcement: Federal Police Department, Federal Highway Police (Brazil), Federal Highway Police, Federal Railroad Police, Federal, District and State Penal Police (included by the Constitutional Amendment No. 104, of 2019), Military Police (Brazil), Military Police and Civil Police (Brazil), Civil Police. Of these, the first three are affiliated with federal authorities, the last two are subordinate to state governments and the Penal Police can be subordinated to the federal or state/district government. All police forces are overseen by the executive branch of the federal or state government. The National Public Security Force also can act in public disorder situations arising anywhere in the country.

The country has high levels of violent crime, such as gun violence and homicides. In 2022, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated an intentional homicide rate of 21.1 per 100,000 inhabitants. The number considered acceptable by the World Health Organization (WHO) is about 10 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2024, Brazil recorded 38,772 homicides, down from 40,768 in 2023, and from a record 63,880 in 2017. Homicide rates vary regionally. While in São Paulo (state), São Paulo the homicide rate registered in 2023 was 6.4 per 100,000 inhabitants, in Amapá it was 57.4 per 100,000 inhabitants. The national homicide rate for 2024 was 17.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest in over a decade.

Brazil also has high levels of incarceration. It had the third largest prison population in the world of approximately 909,067 prisoners in 2024, which put it only behind the United States (1,808,100) and China (1,690,000). The high number of prisoners eventually overloaded the Brazilian prison system, leading to a shortfall of about 200,000 accommodations.

Human rights

Same-sex couples in Brazil have held nationwide Same-sex marriage in Brazil, marriage rights since May 2013.

Political subdivisions

Brazil is a federation composed of 26 Federated state, states, one federal district, and the 5,571 Municipality, municipalities. States have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent Court of Justice (Brazil), Courts of Law for common justice. Despite this, states have much less autonomy to create their own laws than in other federal states such as the United States. Criminal and civil laws can be voted by only the federal bicameral Congress and are uniform throughout the country.

Municipalities, as the states, have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the federal and state government. Each has an elected mayor and legislative body, but no separate Court of Law. Indeed, a Court of Law organized by the state can encompass many municipalities in a single justice administrative division called ''comarca''.

Brazil's constitution also provides for the creation of Federal territories of Brazil, federal territories, which are administrative divisions directly controlled by the federal government. However, there are currently no federal territories in the country, as the 1988 Constitution abolished the last three: Amapá and Roraima (which gained statehood) and Fernando de Noronha, which became a state district of Pernambuco.

Economy

Brazil is a developing country with an List of countries by GNI (nominal) per capita#Upper-middle income group, upper-middle income mixed economy, mixed market economy that is rich in natural resources. It has the largest national economy in Latin America, the List of countries by GDP (nominal), eighth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP, and the List of countries by GDP (PPP), eighth largest by purchasing power parity, PPP. After rapid growth in preceding decades, Brazil 2014–2016 Brazilian economic recession, entered an ongoing recession in 2014 amid a political corruption scandal and nationwide protests; in 2024, the economy began showing consistent significant growth. Brazil has a labor force of roughly 100 million, which is the world's List of countries by labour force, fifth largest. Its foreign exchange reserves are the List of countries by foreign exchange reserves, tenth-highest in the world. The B3 (stock exchange), B3 in São Paulo is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock exchange of Latin America by market capitalization. Roughly one-fifth of Brazilians live in poverty: about 3.8% of the total population lives at $3.00 a day, while about 23% live at $8.30 a day. Brazil's economy suffers from Corruption in Brazil, endemic corruption and Income inequality in Brazil, high income inequality. The Brazilian real is the national currency.

Brazil's diversified economy includes agriculture, industry and a wide range of services. The large service sector accounts for about 72.7% of total GDP, followed by the industrial sector (20.7%), while the Agriculture in Brazil, agriculture sector is by far the smallest, making up 6.6% of total GDP.

Brazil is one of the List of largest producing countries of agricultural commodities, largest producers of various agricultural commodities, and also has a large cooperative sector that provides 50% of the food in the country. It has been the world's largest Coffee production in Brazil, producer of coffee for the last 150 years and is the world's largest producer of sugarcane, soy, coffee and oranges; is one of the top fve producers of maize, cotton, lemon, tobacco, pineapple, banana, beans, coconut, watermelon and papaya; and is one of the top 10 world producers of cocoa, cashew, mango, rice, tomato, sorghum, tangerine, avocado, persimmon, and guava, among others. Regarding livestock, it is one of the five largest producers of chicken meat, beef, pork and cow's milk in the world.

In the Mining in Brazil, mining sector, Brazil is among the largest producers of iron ore, copper, gold, bauxite, manganese, tin, niobium, and nickel. In terms of precious stones, Brazil is the world's largest producer of amethyst, topaz, agate and one of the main producers of tourmaline, emerald, aquamarine (gemstone), aquamarine, garnet and opal. The country is a major exporter of soy, iron ore, pulp (cellulose), maize, beef, chicken meat, soybean meal, sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, orange juice, footwear, airplanes, cars, vehicle parts, gold, ethanol and semi-finished iron, among other products.

Brazil is the world's List of countries by exports, 24th-largest exporter and List of countries by imports, 26th-largest importer . China is its largest trading partner, accounting for 32% of the total trade. Other large trading partners include the United States, Argentina, the Netherlands and Canada. Its Automotive industry in Brazil, automotive industry is the List of countries by motor vehicle production, eighth-largest in the world. In the food industry, Brazil was the second-largest exporter of processed foods in the world in 2019. The country was the second-largest producer of Pulp (paper), pulp in the world and the eighth-largest producer of paper in 2016. In the footwear industry, Brazil was the fourth-largest producer in 2019. It was also the ninth-largest producer of steel in the world. In 2018, the chemical industry of Brazil was the eighth-largest in the world. Although it was among the five largest world producers in 2013, Brazil's textile industry is very little integrated into world trade.

The tertiary sector (trade and services) represented 75.8% of the country's GDP in 2018, according to the IBGE. The service sector was responsible for 60% of GDP and trade for 13%. It covers commerce, transport, education, social and health services, research and development, sports activities, etc. Micro and small businesses represent 30% of the country's GDP. In the commercial sector they represent 53% of the GDP within the activities of the sector.

Tourism

Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economies of several regions of the country. The country had 6.36 million visitors in 2015, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the main destination in South America and second in Latin America after Mexico. Revenues from international tourists reached billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the Late-2000s recession, 2008–2009 economic crisis. Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and billion in receipts were reached in 2011. In the list of world tourist destinations, in 2018, Brazil was the 48th most visited country, with 6.6 million tourists (and revenues of 5.9 billion dollars).

Natural areas are its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, Brazil, Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro (state), Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina (state), Santa Catarina, cultural tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo.

In terms of the 2024 Travel and Tourism Development Index, Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 26th place at the world's level, third in the Americas, after Canada and United States. Domestic tourism is a key market segment for the tourism industry in Brazil. In 2005, 51 million Brazilian nationals made ten times more trips than foreign tourists and spent five times more money than their international counterparts. The main destination states in 2023 were São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro (state), Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul. The main source of tourists for the entire country is São Paulo state. In terms of tourism revenues, the top earners by state were São Paulo (state), São Paulo and Bahia. For 2005, the three main trip purposes were visiting friends and family (53.1%), sun and beach (40.8%), and cultural tourism (12.5%).

Science and technology

Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies. Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Instituto Butantan, Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Brazilian General Command for Aerospace Technology, Aerospace Technical Center, the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária, Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the National Institute for Space Research.

The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellites. The country develops submarines and aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere to integrate a team building the well-known International Space Station (ISS).NASA Signs International Space Station Agreement With Brazil
NASA.

The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where it extracts 73% of its reserves. Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% of its electricity from hydroelectricity) and the country's Brazilian submarine Álvaro Alberto, first nuclear submarine is expected to be launched in 2029.

Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences, and Brazil is the only Latin American country to have a semiconductor company with its own Semiconductor fabrication plant, fabrication plant, the CEITEC. According to the Global Information Technology Report 2009–2010 of the World Economic Forum, Brazil is the world's 61st largest developer of information technology. Brazil was ranked 50th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024, up from 66th in 2019.

Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont, Evaristo Conrado Engelberg, Manuel Dias de Abreu, Andreas Pavel and Nélio José Nicolai. Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of ''Pion, Pi Meson''), Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil), José Leite Lopes (the only Brazilian physicist holder of the ''UNESCO Science Prize''), Artur Avila (the first Latin American winner of the Fields Medal) and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support of the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin).West, David A. 2003. Fritz Müller: a naturalist in Brazil. Blacksburg: Pocahontas Press

Energy

Brazil is the world's List of countries by energy consumption and production, eleventh-largest energy consumer. Much of its energy comes from Renewable energy, renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; the Itaipu Dam is the world's largest hydroelectricity, hydroelectric plant by energy generation, and the country has other large plants such as Belo Monte Dam, Belo Monte and Tucuruí Dam, Tucuruí. The first car with an ethanol engine was produced in 1978 and the first airplane engine running on ethanol in 2005.

At the end of 2021 Brazil was the 2nd country in the world in terms of installed hydroelectric power (109.4 GW) and biomass (15.8 GW), the 7th country in the world in terms of installed wind power (21.1 GW) and the 14th country in the world in terms of installed solar power (13.0 GW)—on track to also become one of the top 10 in the world in solar energy. At the end of 2024, Brazil was the 4th largest producer of wind energy in the world (107.8 TWh), behind only China, the United States and Germany, and the 5th largest producer of solar energy in the world (74.7 TWh).

The main characteristic of the Brazilian energy matrix is that it is much more renewable than that of the world. While in 2019, the world matrix was only 14% made up of renewable energy, Brazil's was at 45%. Petroleum and oil products made up 34.3% of the matrix; sugar cane derivatives, 18%; hydraulic energy, 12.4%; natural gas, 12.2%; firewood and charcoal, 8.8%; varied renewable energies, 7%; mineral coal, 5.3%; nuclear, 1.4%, and other non-renewable energies, 0.6%.

In the electric energy matrix, the difference between Brazil and the world is even greater: while the world only had 25% of renewable electric energy in 2019, Brazil had 83%. The Brazilian electric matrix was composed of: hydraulic energy, 64.9%; biomass, 8.4%; wind energy, 8.6%; solar energy, 1%; natural gas, 9.3%; oil products, 2%; nuclear, 2.5%; coal and derivatives, 3.3%. Brazil has the largest electricity sector in Latin America. Its capacity at the end of 2021 was 181,532 MW.
National Agency of Energy

The Brazilian government has embarked on a program over the decades to reduce dependence on imported oil, which previously accounted for more than 70% of the country's oil needs. Brazil became self-sufficient in oil in 2006–2007. In 2021, the country closed the year as the 7th oil producer in the world, with an average of close to three million barrels per day, becoming an exporter of the product.

Transportation

Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The Brazilian Highway System, road system totaled in 2019. The total of paved roads increased from in 1967 to in 2018.

Brazil's Rail transport in Brazil, railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The country's total railway track length was in 2015, as compared with in 1970, making it the List of countries by rail transport network size, ninth largest network in the world. Most of the railway system belonged to the RFFSA, Federal Railroad Network Corporation (RFFSA), which was privatized in 2007. The São Paulo Metro began operating on 14 September 1974 as the first underground transit system in Brazil.

There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second-largest number in the world, after the United States. São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 43 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country.

For freight transport, waterways are of importance. The Free Economic Zone of Manaus, industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway ( in length, with a minimum depth of ). The country also has of waterways.Country Comparison to the World: Gini Index – Brazil
The World Factbook. Retrieved on 3 April 2012. Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos, São Paulo, Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Port of Santos, Santos, Port of Itajaí, Itajaí, Port of Rio Grande, Rio Grande, Port of Paranaguá, Paranaguá, Port of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Port of Tubarão, Vitória, Suape Port, Suape, Port of Manaus, Manaus and Port of São Francisco do Sul, São Francisco do Sul are the most important. Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced; container ships take 36.3 hours on average.

Demographics

According to the latest official projection, Brazil's estimated population was 210,862,983 on July 1, 2022—an adjustment of 3.9% from the initial figure of 203 million reported by the 2022 census. The population of Brazil, as recorded by the 2008 PNAD, was approximately 190 million (), with a ratio of men to women of 0.95:1 and 83.75% of the population defined as urban. The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeast (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeast (53.5 million inhabitants), while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants.

The first census in Brazil was carried out 1872 Brazilian census, in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478. From 1880 to 1930, four million Europeans arrived. Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years and to 72.6 years in 2007. It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050 thus completing the demographic transition. In 2022, the illiteracy rate was roughly 7%, a significant decline from 11.48% in 2008. By comparison, in 1940, more than half the population (54%) was illiterate.

Race and ethnicity

According to the 2022 Brazilian census, 45.3% of the population (92.1 million) described themselves as Pardo Brazilians, Pardo (meaning Brown (racial classification), brown or multiracial), 43.5% (88.2 million) as White Brazilians, White, 10.2% (20.7 million) as Afro-Brazilians, Black, 0.6% (1.2 million) as Indigenous peoples in Brazil, Indigenous and 0.4% (850,000) as Asian Brazilians, East Asian (officially called ''Mongoloid, yellow'' or ''amarela'').2008 PNAD, IBGE

Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable genetic mixing between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country:

* European ancestry being dominant according to all autosomal studies undertaken covering the population, accounting for between 60% and 65% of the average genetic makeup of the Brazilian population.Brazilian DNA is nearly 80% European, indicates study
NMO Godinh
O impacto das migrações na constituição genética de populações latino-americanas
. PhD Thesis, Universidade de Brasília (2008).
* African ancestry among the Brazilians is estimated at 20% to 25% of the average genetic makeup
* Indigenous ancestry is significant and present in all regions of Brazil, accounting for around 15% to 20% of the average genetic ancestry of Brazilians.

From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to Immigration to Brazil, immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese Brazilian, Portuguese, Italian Brazilian, Italian, Brazilians of Spanish descent, Spanish, German Brazilian, German, English Brazilian, English, Ukrainian Brazilian, Ukrainian, Polish Brazilian, Polish, Jewish Brazilian, Jewish, Afro-Brazilian, African, Armenians, Armenian, Russians in Brazil, Russian, Chinese Brazilian, Chinese, Japanese Brazilian, Japanese, Korean Brazilian, Korean and Arab Brazilian, Arab origin. Brazil has the second-largest Jewish community in both Latin America after Argentina making up 0.06% of its population. Outside of the Arab world, Brazil also has the largest Arab diaspora, population of Arab ancestry in the world, with 15–20 million people. According to Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brazil is home to a Lebanese diaspora of 7 million to 10 million, surpassing the population of Lebanese individuals residing in Lebanon.

Brazilian society is more Social issues in Brazil, markedly divided by social class lines, although a high Income inequality in Brazil, income disparity is found Social apartheid in Brazil, between race groups, so racism and Class discrimination, classism often overlap. The brown population (officially called ''pardo'' in Portuguese)Coelho (1996), p. 268.Vesentini (1988), p. 117. is a broad category that includes ''caboclos'' (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), ''Mulatto, mulatos'' (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and ''Zambo, cafuzos'' (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives).Moreira (1981), p. 108. Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba and also in northern Maranhão, southern Minas GeraisAzevedo (1971), p. 161. and eastern Rio de Janeiro.

People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions. In 2007, the Fundação Nacional do Índio, National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world.

Religion

Christianity is the country's predominant faith, with Catholicism being its largest denomination. Brazil has the Catholic Church by country, world's largest Catholic population. According to the 2022 demographic census (the PNAD survey does not inquire about religion), 56.75% of the population followed Catholicism; 26.85% Protestantism in Brazil, Protestantism; 1.84% Kardecist spiritism; 5.06% other religions, undeclared or undetermined; while 9.28% had no religion.

Religious diversity in Brazil developed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved African peoples and indigenous peoples. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholic Church, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities.

Religious pluralism increased during the 20th century, and the Protestant community had grown to include over 22% of the population by 2010—partly due to a mixture of American missionary and government influence. The most common Protestant denominations are Evangelicalism, Evangelical Pentecostalism, Pentecostal ones. Other Protestant branches with a notable presence in the country include the Baptists, Seventh-day Adventist Church, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutheranism, Lutherans and the Calvinism, Reformed tradition. In recent decades, Protestantism, particularly in forms of Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism, has spread in Brazil, while the proportion of Catholics had dropped significantly during the 2010s. See drop-down essay on "The Growth of Religious Pluralism" As they have spread throughout Brazil, many have even been deeply involved in Brazilian and international politics, and Evangelical Protestant influence has been implicated in the 2022 Brazilian coup plot. Since 2022, Evangelicals and Catholics have considered begun reconsidering religion as a political factor.

After Protestantism, individuals professing no religion are also a significant group, having exceeded 8% of the population according to the 2010 census. The cities of Boa Vista, Roraima, Boa Vista, Salvador, and Porto Velho have the greatest proportion of Irreligion, Irreligious residents in Brazil. Teresina, Fortaleza, and Florianópolis were the most Roman Catholic in the country. Greater Rio de Janeiro, not including the city proper, is the most irreligious and least Roman Catholic Brazilian periphery, while Greater Porto Alegre and Greater Fortaleza are on the opposite sides of the lists, respectively.

In October 2009, the Brazilian Senate approved and enacted by the President of Brazil in February 2010, an agreement with the Holy See, Vatican, in which the Legal Statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil is recognized.

Health

The Brazilian public health system, the Sistema Único de Saúde, Unified Health System (''Sistema Único de Saúde'' – SUS), is managed and provided by all levels of government, being the largest system of this type in the world. On the other hand, private healthcare systems play a complementary role. Public health services are universal and offered to all citizens of the country for free. However, the construction and maintenance of health centers and hospitals are financed by taxes, and the country spends about 9% of its GDP on expenditures in the area. In 2021, Brazil had 2.1 doctors and 2.5 hospital beds for every 1,000 inhabitants.

Despite all the progress made since the creation of the universal health care system in 1988, there are still several public health issues in Brazil. In 2006, the main points to be solved were the high List of countries by infant mortality rate, infant (2.51%) and maternal mortality rates (73.1 deaths per 1000 births).

The number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (151.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and cancer (72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), also has a considerable impact on the health of the Brazilian population. Finally, external but preventable factors such as car accidents, violence and suicide caused 14.9% of all deaths in the country. The Brazilian health system was ranked 125th among the 191 countries evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000.

Education

The Federal Constitution and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education determine that the Union, the states, the Federal District and the municipalities must manage and organize their respective education systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as the mechanisms and funding sources. The constitution reserves 25% of the state budget and 18% of federal taxes and municipal taxes for education.

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, IBGE, the literacy rate was 93.4% in 2019, meaning that 11.3 million (6.6% of population) people are still illiterate in the country, with some states such as Rio de Janeiro (state), Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina (state), Santa Catarina reaching around 97% of literacy rate; functional illiteracy has reached 21.6% of the population. Illiteracy is higher in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast, where 13.87% of the population is illiterate, while the South Region, Brazil, South, has 3.3% of its population illiterate.

Brazil's private institutions tend to be more exclusive and offer better quality education, so many high-income families send their children there. The result is a segregated educational system that reflects extreme income disparities and reinforces social inequality. However, efforts to change this are making impacts. The University of São Paulo is often considered College and university rankings, the best in Brazil and Latin America. Of the top 20 Latin American universities, eight are Brazilian; most are Public university, public. Attending an institution of higher education is required by Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. Kindergarten, elementary and medium education are required of all students.

Language

The official language of Brazil is Portuguese (Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil), which almost all of the population speaks and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for business and administrative purposes. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from those of its Spanish-speaking neighbors.

Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, mostly similar to 16th-century Central and Southern dialects of European Portuguese (despite a very substantial number of Portuguese colonial settlers, and Portuguese Brazilian, more recent immigrants, coming from Northern Portugal, Northern regions, and in minor degree Portuguese Macaronesia), with a few influences from the Indigenous languages of the Americas, Amerindian and Languages of Africa, African languages, especially West African and Bantu languages, Bantu restricted to the vocabulary only. As a result, the language is somewhat different, mostly in phonology, from the language of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries (the dialects of the other countries, partly because of the more recent end of Portuguese colonialism in these regions, have a closer connection to contemporary European Portuguese). These differences are comparable to those between American English, American and British English.

The 2002 recognition of sign languages, sign language lawLEI Nº 10.436, DE 24 DE ABRIL DE 2002
Presidência da República, Casa Civil, Subchefia para Assuntos Jurídicos. Retrieved on 19 May 2012. requires government authorities and public agencies to accept and provide information in ''Língua Brasileira dos Sinais'' or "LIBRAS", the Brazilian Sign Language, while a 2005 presidential edictBrazilian decree nº 5626, 22 December 2005
Planalto.gov.br (23 December 2005). Retrieved on 19 May 2012. extends this to require teaching of the language as a part of the education and speech and language pathology curricula. LIBRAS teachers, instructors and translators are recognized professionals. Schools and health services must provide access ("inclusion (education), inclusion") to deaf people.

Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a significant number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants. In the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Nheengatu language, Nheengatu (a currently endangered creole language with Old Tupi, Tupi lexicon and Portuguese-based grammar that, together with its southern relative língua geral paulista, once was a major lingua franca in Brazil), Baniwa of Içana, Baniwa and Tucano languages had been granted co-official status with Portuguese.

There are significant communities of German (mostly the Riograndenser Hunsrückisch, Brazilian Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian dialect, Talian, a Venetian language, Venetian dialect) origins in the Southern and Southeastern regions, whose ancestors' native languages were carried along to Brazil, and which, still alive there, are influenced by the Portuguese language. Talian is officially a historic heritage of Rio Grande do Sul, and two German dialects possess co-official status in a few municipalities. Italian is also recognized as ethnic language in Santa Teresa, Espírito Santo, Santa Teresa and Vila Velha, in the state of Espírito Santo.

Urbanization

According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants.
The largest urban agglomerations in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte—all in the Southeastern Region—with 21.1, 12.3, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively. The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, Brazil, Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina.

File:SP_from_Altino_Arantes_Building.jpg, 1. São Paulo
File:Enseada de Botafogo e Pão de Açúcar.jpg, 2. Rio de Janeiro
File:Belo Horizonte, Brasil.jpg, 3. Belo Horizonte
File:Recife_-_Início_da_Avenida_Boa_Viagem.jpg, 4. Recife

Culture

The core culture of Brazil is derived from Culture of Portugal, Portuguese culture, due to its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese Empire. Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. Brazilian culture was also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions.

Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European as well as Japanese, Jewish and Arab immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries. The indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and Brazilian cuisine, cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, Music of Brazil, music, dance and religion.

Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque in Brazil, Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century)"The Brazilian Baroque"
''Encyclopaedia Itaú Cultural'' to Brazilian academic art, Romanticism, Modern art, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract art, Abstractionism. Cinema of Brazil, Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim since the 1960s.

Architecture

The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time, when Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil. It is the basis for all Brazilian architecture of later centuries. In the 19th century, during the time of the Empire of Brazil, the country followed European trends and adopted Neoclassical architecture, Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. Then, in the 20th century, especially in Brasília, Brazil experimented with modernist architecture.

The colonial architecture of Brazil dates to the early 16th century, when Brazil was first explored, conquered and settled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese built architecture familiar to them in Europe in their aim to colonize Brazil. They built Portuguese colonial architecture, which included churches and civic architecture, including houses and forts, in Brazilian cities and the countryside.

During the 19th century, Brazilian architecture saw the introduction of more European styles to Brazil, such as Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. This was usually mixed with Brazilian influences from their own heritage.Guimaraens, Cêça de
''Arquitetura''
. Portal do Ministério das Relações Exteriores. In the 1950s modernist architecture was introduced when Brasília was built as a new federal capital in the interior of Brazil to help develop the interior. The architect Oscar Niemeyer idealized and built government buildings, churches and civic buildings in the modernist style.Claro, Mauro
"Ambientes modernos. A casa modernista da Rua Santa Cruz, de Gregori Warchavchik, e outras casas da modernidade"
In: ''Drops'', 2008; 09 (025.03)

Music

The music of Brazil was formed mainly from the fusion of European, Native Indigenous, and African elements. Until the nineteenth century, Portugal was the gateway to most of the influences that built Brazilian music, although many of these elements were not of Portuguese origin, but generally European. The first was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, author of sacred pieces with an influence of Viennese classicism. The major contribution of the African element was the rhythmic diversity and some dances and instruments.

Popular music since the late eighteenth century, samba was considered the most typical and on the UNESCO cultural heritage list. Samba reggae, Samba-reggae, Maracatu, Frevo and Afoxê are four music traditions that have been popularized by their appearance in the annual Brazilian Carnivals. Capoeira is usually played with its own music referred to as capoeira music, which is usually considered to be a call-and-response type of folk music. Forró is a type of folk music prominent during the Festa Junina in Northeast Region, Brazil, northeastern Brazil. Jack A. Draper III, a professor of Portuguese at the University of Missouri, argues that Forró was used as a way to subdue feelings of nostalgia for a rural lifestyle.

Choro is a popular musical instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro. The style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by subtle Modulation (music), modulations and full of syncopation and counterpoint. Bossa nova is also a well-known style of Brazilian music developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s. The phrase "bossa nova" means literally 'new trend'. A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following starting in the 1960s. Some international Brazilian music artists are, for example: Carmen Miranda, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Tom Jobim, João Gilberto, Sérgio Mendes, Eumir Deodato, Sepultura, and Olodum.

Literature

Brazilian literature dates back to the 16th century, to the writings of the first Portuguese explorers in Brazil, such as Pero Vaz de Caminha, filled with descriptions of fauna, flora and commentary about the indigenous population that fascinated European readers.

Brazil produced significant works in Romanticism—novelists such as Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and José de Alencar wrote novels about love and pain. Alencar, in his long career, also treated indigenous people as heroes in the Indianism (arts), Indigenist novels ''The Guarani, O Guarani'', ''Iracema'' and ''Ubirajara (novel), Ubirajara''. Machado de Assis, one of his contemporaries, wrote in virtually all genres and continues to gain international prestige from critics worldwide.

Brazilian literature#Modernism, Brazilian Modernism, evidenced by the Modern Art Week in 1922, was concerned with a nationalist avant-garde literature, while Brazilian literature#Post-Modernism, Post-Modernism brought a generation of distinct poets such as João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinicius de Moraes, Cora Coralina, Graciliano Ramos, Cecília Meireles, and internationally known writers dealing with universal and regional subjects such as Jorge Amado, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector and Manuel Bandeira.

Brazil's most significant literary award is the Camões Prize, which it shares with the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world. As of 2016, Brazil has eleven recipients of the prize. Brazil also holds its own literary academy, the Brazilian Academy of Letters, a non-profit cultural organization aimed at perpetuating the care of the national language and literature.

Cinema

The Brazilian film industry began in the late 19th century, during the early days of the Belle Époque. While there were national film productions during the early 20th century, American films such as ''Rio the Magnificent'' were made in Rio de Janeiro to promote tourism in the city. The films ''Limite'' (1931) and ''Ganga Bruta'' (1933), the latter being produced by Adhemar Gonzaga through the prolific studio Cinédia, were poorly received at release and failed at the box office, but are acclaimed nowadays and placed among the finest Brazilian films of all time. The 1941 unfinished film ''It's All True (film), It's All True'' was divided into four segments, two of which were filmed in Brazil and directed by Orson Welles; it was originally produced as part of the United States' Good Neighbor Policy during Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo.

During the 1960s, the Cinema Novo movement rose to prominence with directors such as Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Paulo César Saraceni and Arnaldo Jabor. Glauber Rocha's films ''Black God, White Devil'' (1964) and ''Entranced Earth'' (1967) are considered to be some of the greatest and most influential in Brazilian film history. Rocha won the Best Director Award (Cannes Film Festival), Prix de la mise en scène at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival for ''Antonio das Mortes'' and the 1977 Cannes Film Festival, 1977 Short Film Palme d'Or, Special Jury Prize for Best Short Film for ''Di''.

During the 1990s, Brazil saw a surge of critical and commercial success with films such as ''O Quatrilho'' (Fábio Barreto, 1995), ''O Que É Isso, Companheiro?'' (Bruno Barreto, 1997) and ''Central Station (film), Central do Brasil'' (Walter Salles, 1998), all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the latter receiving a Academy Award for Best Actress, Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Montenegro. The 2002 crime film ''City of God (2002 film), City of God'', directed by Fernando Meirelles, was critically acclaimed, scoring 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, being placed in Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Decade list and receiving four Academy Awards, Academy Award nominations in 2004, including Academy Award for Best Director, Best Director. Notable film festivals in Brazil include the São Paulo International Film Festival, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festivals and the Festival de Gramado, Gramado Festival.

The film I'm Still Here (2024 film), ''I'm Still Here'', directed by Walter Salles, was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress, Best Actress (Torres) and Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards, and won Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, Best International Feature Film, becoming the first-ever Brazilian produced film to win an Academy Award. The film The Secret Agent (2025 film), ''The Secret Agent'' had its world premiere at the main competition of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2025, where it won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor, Best Actor prize for Wagner Moura, the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director, Best Director prize for Mendonça and the International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI Prize. It received further widespread critical acclaim.

Visual arts

Brazilian painting emerged in the late 16th century, influenced by Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism (arts), Realism, Modernism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism and Abstract art, Abstracionism making it a major art style called Brazilian academic art.

The Missão Artística Francesa, French Artistic Mission arrived in Brazil in 1816 proposing the creation of an art academy modeled after the respected Académie des Beaux-Arts, with graduation courses both for artists and craftsmen for activities such as modeling, decorating, carpentry and others and bringing artists such as Jean-Baptiste Debret.

Upon the creation of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts (Brazil), Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, new artistic movements spread across the country during the 19th century and later the event called Modern Art Week broke with academic tradition in 1922 and started a nationalist trend which was influenced by modernist arts.

Among the best-known Brazilian painters are Ricardo do Pilar and Manoel da Costa Ataíde (baroque and rococo), Victor Meirelles, Pedro Américo and José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior, Almeida Júnior (romanticism and realism), Anita Malfatti, Ismael Nery, Lasar Segall, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, Vicente do Rego Monteiro, and Tarsila do Amaral (expressionism, surrealism and cubism), Aldo Bonadei, José Pancetti and Candido Portinari (modernism).

Theatre

The theatre in Brazil has its origins in the period of Jesuits, Jesuit expansion, when theater was used for the dissemination of Catholic doctrine in the 16th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries, dramatists on the scene of European derivation were for court or private performances. During the 19th century, the playwrights Gonçalves Dias, Antônio Gonçalves Dias and Martins Pena, Luís Carlos Martins Pena were known for their performance. There were also numerous operas and orchestras. The Brazilian conductor Antônio Carlos Gomes became internationally known with operas such as ''Il Guarany''. At the end of the 19th century, orchestrated dramaturgias were accompanied with songs of famous artists such as the conductress Chiquinha Gonzaga.

Already in the early 20th century there was the presence of theaters, entrepreneurs and actor companies. In 1940, Paschoal Carlos Magno and his student's theater, the comedians group and the Italian actors Adolfo Celi, Ruggero Jacobbi and Aldo Calvo, founders of the ''Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia'', renewed the Brazilian theater. From the 1960s, it was attended by a theater dedicated to social and religious issues. The most prominent authors at this stage were Jorge Andrade and Ariano Suassuna.

Cuisine

Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region, reflecting the country's varying mix of indigenous and immigrant populations. This has created a national cuisine marked by the preservation of regional differences. Some of the most well known Brazilian foods are the Feijoada (Brazilian dish), feijoada, considered the country's national dish; and churrasco, a kind of barbecue which is often served in rodízio style. Other regional foods include beijú, feijão tropeiro, vatapá, moqueca, polenta (from Italian cuisine) and acarajé (from African cuisine). The national beverage is coffee; cachaça is Brazil's native liquor. Cachaça is distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in the national cocktail, Caipirinha.

A typical meal consists mostly of rice and beans with beef, salad, french fries and a fried egg. Often, it is mixed with cassava flour (farofa). Fried potatoes, fried cassava, fried banana, fried meat and fried cheese are very often eaten in lunch and served in most typical restaurants. Popular snacks are pastel (food), pastel (a fried pastry); coxinha (a variation of chicken croquete); pão de queijo (cheese bread and cassava flour / tapioca); pamonha (corn and milk paste); sfiha, esfirra (a variation of Lebanese pastry); kibbeh (from Arabic cuisine); and empada (pastry), little salt pies filled with shrimps or heart of palm.

Brazil has a variety of desserts such as brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls), bolo de rolo (roll cake with goiabada), cocada (a coconut sweet), beijinhos (coconut truffles and clove) and Romeu e Julieta (cheese with goiabada). Peanuts are used to make paçoca, rapadura and pé de moleque. Local common fruits such as açaí, cupuaçu, mango, papaya, cocoa bean, cocoa, cashew, guava, orange (fruit), orange, Lime (fruit), lime, passionfruit, pineapple, and Spondias, hog plum are turned in juices and used to make chocolates, ice pops and ice cream.

Media

The Brazilian press was officially born in Rio de Janeiro on 13 May 1808 with the creation of the Royal Printing National Press by the Prince Regent John. The , the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808. The largest newspapers nowadays are , ''O Globo'', and ''O Estado de S. Paulo''.

Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Epitácio Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of the "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro". Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand. Since then, television has grown in the country, creating large commercial broadcast networks such as Rede Globo, Globo, Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão, SBT, RecordTV, Rede Bandeirantes, Bandeirantes and RedeTV!, RedeTV.

By the mid-1960s, Brazilian universities had installed mainframe computers from IBM and Burroughs Large Systems. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Brazilian government restricted foreign imports to protect the local manufacturing of computers. In the 1980s, Brazil produced half of the computers sold in the country. By 2009, the mobile phone and Internet use in Brazil was the fifth largest in the world.

In May 2010, the Brazilian government launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries. Commercial television channels broadcast internationally include Globo Internacional, RecordTV Internacional and Band Internacional.

Sports

The most popular sport in Brazil is association football, football. The Brazil national football team, Brazilian men's national team is ranked among the best in the world according to the FIFA World Rankings, and has won the FIFA World Cup, World Cup tournament a record five times.

Volleyball, basketball, auto racing and martial arts also has large audiences. The Brazil men's national volleyball team currently holds the titles of the FIVB Volleyball World League, World League, FIVB Volleyball World Grand Champions Cup, World Grand Champions Cup, FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship, World Championship and the FIVB Volleyball Men's World Cup, World Cup. In auto racing, three Brazilian drivers have won the Formula One world championship eight times. The country has also produced significant achievements in other sports such as Sailing (sport), sailing, Swimming (sport), swimming, tennis, surfing, skateboarding, MMA, gymnastics, boxing, judo, Track and field, athletics and table tennis.

Some sport variations have their origins in Brazil: beach soccer, beach football, futsal (indoor football) and footvolley emerged in Brazil as variations of football. In martial arts, Brazilians developed Capoeira, Vale tudo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Brazil has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, such as the 1950 FIFA World Cup, and recently has hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup, 2019 Copa América and 2021 Copa América . The São Paulo circuit, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, hosts the annual Brazilian Grand Prix, Grand Prix of Brazil. São Paulo organized the 1963 Pan American Games, IV Pan American Games in 1963, and Rio de Janeiro hosted the 2007 Pan American Games, XV Pan American Games in 2007. On 2 October 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, 2016 Olympic Games and 2016 Summer Paralympics, 2016 Paralympic Games, making it the first South American city to host the games"Olympics 2016: Tearful Pele and weeping Lula greet historic win for Rio"
''The Guardian'', 2 October 2009. and second in Latin America, after Mexico City. Furthermore, the country hosted the FIBA Basketball World Cups in 1954 FIBA World Championship, 1954 and 1963 FIBA World Championship, 1963. At the 1963 event, the Brazil national basketball team won one of its two world championship titles.

See also

* Outline of Brazil

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Azevedo, Aroldo. ''O Brasil e suas regiões''. São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1971
* Barman, Roderick J. ''Citizen Emperor: Pedro II and the Making of Brazil, 1825–1891''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
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* C. R. Boxer, Boxer, Charles R. ''The Portuguese Seaborne Empire'' (1969)
** ''O império marítimo português 1415–1825''. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002.
* Bueno, Eduardo. ''Brasil: uma História''. São Paulo: Ática, 2003.
* Calmon, Pedro. ''História da Civilização Brasileira''. Brasília: Senado Federal, 2002
* Carvalho, José Murilo de. ''D. Pedro II''. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2007
* Coelho, Marcos Amorim. ''Geografia do Brasil''. 4th ed. São Paulo: Moderna, 1996
* Diégues, Fernando. ''A revolução brasílica''. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2004
* ''Barsa (encyclopedia), Enciclopédia Barsa''. Volume 4: Batráquio – Camarão, Filipe. Rio de Janeiro: Encyclopædia Britannica do Brasil, 1987
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* Fausto, Boris and Devoto, Fernando J. ''Brasil e Argentina: Um ensaio de história comparada (1850–2002)'', 2nd ed. São Paulo: Editoria 34, 2005.
* Elio Gaspari, Gaspari, Elio. ''A ditadura envergonhada''. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002.
* Janotti, Aldo. ''O Marquês de Paraná: inícios de uma carreira política num momento crítico da história da nacionalidade''. Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia, 1990
* Lyra, Heitor. ''História de Dom Pedro II (1825–1891): Ascenção (1825–1870). v. 1''. Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia, 1977
* Lyra, Heitor. ''História de Dom Pedro II (1825–1891): Declínio (1880–1891). v. 3''. Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia, 1977
* Lustosa, Isabel. ''D. Pedro I: um herói sem nenhum caráter''. São Paulo: Companhia das letras, 2006.
* Moreira, Igor A. G. ''O Espaço Geográfico, geografia geral e do Brasil''. 18. Ed. São Paulo: Ática, 1981
* Munro, Dana Gardner. ''The Latin American Republics; A History''. New York: D. Appleton, 1942.
* Peres, Damião (1949) ''O Descobrimento do Brasil por Pedro Álvares Cabral: antecedentes e intencionalidade'' Porto: Portucalense.
* Scheina, Robert L. ''Latin America: A Naval History, 1810–1987''. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987.
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* Stuart B. Schwartz ''Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil'' (1973)
** ''Early Latin America'' (1983)
** ''Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society'' (1985)
* Thomas Skidmore, Skidmore, Thomas E. ''Brazil: Five Centuries of Change'' (Oxford University Press, 1999)
** ''Uma História do Brasil''. 4th ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2003.
* Souza, Adriana Barreto de. ''Duque de Caxias: o homem por trás do monumento''. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2008. .
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* Vainfas, Ronaldo. ''Dicionário do Brasil Imperial''. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2002.
* Vesentini, José William. ''Brasil, sociedade e espaço – Geografia do Brasil''. 7th Ed. São Paulo: Ática, 1988
* Vianna, Hélio. ''História do Brasil: período colonial, monarquia e república'', 15th ed. São Paulo: Melhoramentos, 1994
* Zirin, Dave. ''Brazil's Dance with the Devil: The World Cup, The Olympics, and the Fight for Democracy'' Haymarket Books 2014.

Further reading

* Alencastro Felipe, Luiz Felipe de. ''The Trade in the Living: The Formation of Brazil in the South Atlantic, Sixteenth to Seventeenth Centuries'' (SUNY Press, 2019)
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* Levine, Robert M. ''Historical Dictionary of Brazil'' (2019)
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External links

''Government''

Brazilian Federal Government

Official Tourist Guide of Brazil

Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics
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{{Coord, 10, S, 52, W, display=title

Brazil,
BRICS nations
Countries and territories where Portuguese is an official language
Countries in South America
Federal constitutional republics
Former Portuguese colonies
G15 nations
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Member states of Mercosur
Member states of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries
Member states of the United Nations
States and territories established in 1822