Facts about Brazil
Capital Brasília · South America
10 topics · about 20 minutes
Brazil is the largest country in South America and the fifth largest in the world, covering nearly half the continent and holding most of the Amazon rainforest. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas, a legacy of the 1494 treaty that split the New World between Portugal and Spain.
Brazil is a federation of 26 states and a federal district covering nearly half of South America, and it borders every country on the continent except Chile and Ecuador. The Amazon basin fills the north with the largest river system on Earth, the Brazilian Highlands south of it carry the coffee and soy belt, and the semi-arid sertão of the northeast suffers recurrent drought. Most of the 213 million people live along the 7,400 kilometers of Atlantic coastline rather than in the vast interior.
São Paulo is the economic engine and the largest metropolitan area in the southern hemisphere, while Rio de Janeiro holds the beaches, the mountains and most of the country’s image abroad. Brasília was built from nothing in the interior between 1956 and 1960 to pull development inland, Salvador is the center of Afro-Brazilian culture, and Manaus sits deep in the Amazon a thousand kilometers from the sea. Visitors usually pick between Rio and the coast, the Amazon or the Pantanal for wildlife, and Iguazu Falls on the Argentine border.
- Population
- 213 million
- Area
- 8,515,767 km²
- Currency
- Real (R$)
- Official language
- Portuguese
- States
- 26 states and a federal district
- Highest point
- Pico da Neblina, 2,995 m
The Brazil course
Geography of Brazil
The largest river system on Earth in the north, and almost everyone on the Atlantic coast.
History of Brazil
Sugar, gold and coffee worked by enslaved Africans, and a colony that became its own empire.
Language of Brazil
Twenty times more Portuguese speakers than Portugal, and thousands of words from Tupi.
Culture of Brazil
Samba and bossa nova, the largest festival on the planet, and five World Cups.
Economy of Brazil
The biggest exporter of soy, coffee and beef, plus sugarcane ethanol since the 1970s.
Politics of Brazil
Compulsory voting, electronic ballots since 1996, and coalitions built from dozens of parties.
Nature & Wildlife of Brazil
The most biodiverse country on Earth, and 390 billion trees in the Amazon alone.
Food & Cuisine of Brazil
Feijoada at long weekend lunches, West African cooking in Bahia, and 150 years of coffee.
Landmarks of Brazil
A figure on a peak above Rio, 275 waterfalls on one border, and a city shaped like an aeroplane.
People & Society of Brazil
213 million, mostly urban, with the largest Japanese community outside Japan.
Geography of Brazil
Brazil borders every South American country except Chile and Ecuador, and its 7,400 kilometers of Atlantic coastline hold most of the population. The Amazon basin fills the north with the largest river system on Earth by volume, discharging roughly a fifth of all river water that reaches the oceans.
South of the basin the land rises into the Brazilian Highlands, a plateau that carries the coffee and soy belt and drops to the coast along a steep escarpment. Other major regions include the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, and the semi-arid sertão of the northeast, which suffers recurrent drought. Most of the country lies in the tropics.
History of Brazil
Portuguese ships reached the coast in 1500, and the colony grew first on sugar and later on gold and coffee, worked by enslaved Africans. Brazil received around 4.9 million enslaved people, close to 40 percent of the entire transatlantic trade and far more than any other destination.
The Portuguese court fled Napoleon and moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1808, an inversion that made a colony the seat of its own empire. Independence came in 1822 under a Brazilian emperor, slavery was abolished only in 1888, and a republic followed a year later. The military ruled from 1964 to 1985, after which civilian democracy returned and the 1988 constitution took effect.
Language of Brazil
Brazil holds far more Portuguese speakers than Portugal, roughly 200 million against about 10 million, so Brazilian usage now drives the language internationally. Pronunciation, vocabulary and even grammar diverge noticeably, and a 1990 orthographic agreement aligned spelling across Portuguese-speaking countries.
The language absorbed a great deal from Tupi, the indigenous lingua franca of the early colonial period, which supplied thousands of place names along with words for local plants and animals. Around 200 indigenous languages survive, most with very few speakers, and Nheengatu holds co-official status in one Amazonas municipality.
Culture of Brazil
Brazilian culture is the product of Portuguese, African and indigenous currents mixing over five centuries. Samba grew out of Afro-Brazilian communities in Rio and Bahia, bossa nova refined it into something quieter in the late 1950s, and both remain central to how the country presents itself abroad.
Carnival is the largest festival on the planet, with Rio’s samba school parades judged as competitive spectacle in a purpose-built stadium. Capoeira combines martial art and dance in a form developed by enslaved Africans, and Candomblé preserves Yoruba religious practice. Football is close to a national religion, and Brazil has won the World Cup five times, more than any other country.
Economy of Brazil
Brazil has the largest economy in Latin America, resting on agriculture, mining and a substantial industrial base. It is the biggest exporter of soybeans, coffee, sugar, orange juice and beef, and a major producer of iron ore, with China as the dominant customer for most of it.
Ethanol from sugarcane has powered flex-fuel cars since the 1970s oil shocks, making the country a pioneer in biofuel. Offshore pre-salt oil fields discovered in 2006 turned it into a significant petroleum exporter. Persistent problems include high interest rates, complex taxation and inequality that remains among the widest in the world despite large cash transfer programs.
Politics of Brazil
Brazil is a federal presidential republic. The president serves as both head of state and head of government for a four-year term with one immediate re-election allowed, and the National Congress has a Chamber of Deputies alongside a Senate with three seats per state.
Voting is compulsory for literate citizens aged 18 to 70, and elections have run on fully electronic voting machines since 1996. Dozens of parties hold congressional seats, so presidents govern through sprawling coalitions assembled issue by issue. The 26 states and the federal district hold significant autonomy, and corruption investigations have reached the highest levels of government repeatedly since the 2010s.
Nature & Wildlife of Brazil
Brazil is the most biodiverse country on Earth, holding around 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest along with the Atlantic Forest, the Cerrado savanna and the Pantanal wetland. The Amazon alone contains an estimated 390 billion trees across some 16,000 species.
Wildlife includes jaguars, giant anteaters, pink river dolphins, harpy eagles and hundreds of primate species, many found nowhere else. Deforestation is the central environmental issue, driven by cattle ranching and soy, and clearance rates have swung sharply with changes in federal enforcement. Indigenous territories cover roughly 13 percent of the country and consistently show lower forest loss than surrounding land.
Food & Cuisine of Brazil
Feijoada, a slow-cooked stew of black beans with salted and smoked pork, is the closest thing to a national dish and is traditionally eaten at long weekend lunches. Rice and beans form the everyday base of meals almost everywhere in the country.
Regional cooking diverges widely. Bahia in the northeast uses palm oil, coconut milk and dried shrimp in dishes with clear West African roots, while the southern grasslands produce churrasco, the open-fire beef barbecue that gave rise to the rodízio steakhouse. Brazil has been the largest coffee producer in the world for over 150 years, and açaí, cassava and cashew all originate here.
Landmarks of Brazil
Christ the Redeemer has stood above Rio de Janeiro since 1931, a 30-meter soapstone figure on the Corcovado peak that was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Sugarloaf Mountain and Copacabana beach complete the city’s skyline, and Rio’s harbour landscape carries UNESCO listing in its own right.
Iguazu Falls on the Argentine border spreads roughly 275 separate drops across nearly three kilometers, carrying far more water than Niagara. Brasília, laid out by Lúcio Costa and built in the shape of an aeroplane between 1956 and 1960 with buildings by Oscar Niemeyer, is the only modernist city on the World Heritage list.
People & Society of Brazil
Brazil has about 213 million residents, making it the seventh most populous country, though fertility has fallen from over six births per woman in 1960 to below replacement level today. Roughly 87 percent live in cities, with São Paulo the largest metropolitan area in the southern hemisphere.
The census records the population as mostly mixed race and white in near-equal shares, with a large Black population and smaller Asian and indigenous groups. Brazil holds the largest Japanese community outside Japan, concentrated in São Paulo, and the largest Catholic population in the world, though evangelical Protestant churches have grown rapidly since the 1990s.
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