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Brazil

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Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil [pronounced: bra 'ziw]), officially known as the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil) is a federal presidential constitutional republic in South America. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest one in the world. With over 210 million inhabitants, Brazil is not only the largest country in both South America and Latin America, but it is also the fifth-largest country in the world by area and the fifth most populous.

The country's capital city is Brasília, and the largest city is São Paulo, with over 12 million inhabitants. The Greater Sao Paulo is the country's largest metropolitan area, with 21.3 million residents. Brazil is bounded to the north and northwest by Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, Bolivia and French Guiana (a department of France), to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the northeast by Paraguay, to the south and southeast by Uruguay and Argentina.

Before Brazil was "discovered" by Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral in 1500, it was populated by several indigenous tribes. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony from 1500 to 1815. In 1815, the colony became a kingdom and the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was created. In 1822, it became an independent country and in 1889, it became a presidential republic. Its current president is Jair Bolsonaro.

Etymology[]

The name "Brazil" is thought to be derived from "Pau-Brasil", which is Portuguese for brazilwood (Paubrasilia echinata), a timber tree that once plentifully grew along the Brazilian coast. The reason why it's named after a tree is that the Tupi people, a lot of the time, were selling brazilwood to the Europeans who came to trade there in return for assorted European consumer goods.

In addition, the commonly given etymology for the Portuguese term brasil is "red like an ember", formed from brasa, meaning "ember" and the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium)

History[]

11,000 years prior to the Portuguese colonization, several Native Brazilian tribes migrated to Brazil from North Asia either by land or by shallow coastal sailing. These tribes were broadly categorized into Tupi (who were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambas), Guarani, Ge, and Arawak. The estimated indigenous population around the time of Portuguese arrival was 7 million. From 800 CE to 1400 CE, the marajoara culture on the island of Marajo flourished as an Amazonian ceramic center.

The Portuguese fleet commanded by navigator Pedro Alvarez Cabral landed in the land now known as Brazil on April 22, 1500, and claimed it to be part of the Kingdom of Portugal. Cabral had 13 vessels with him. On January 22, 1532, Sao Vicente was established as the first settlement of Portugal in Brazil. In 1534, King John III established the Captaincies of Brazil and divided Colonial Brazil into fifteen donatory captaincies. In 1549, the failing colonies were returned to the Portuguese crown, thus forming a government.

Sugar became Brazil's most important export by the mid-16th century and slaves purchased in West Africa had become its largest import, to cope with plantations of sugarcane. A group called the Bandeirantes went to explore the land for minerals and slaves. They've killed thousands of natives. The French during the 1560s and 1610s, the Dutch during the Dutch-Portuguese war tried to colonize the states of Rio, Maranhao, Bahia, and Pernambuco respectively.  When gold was discovered in the 1690s, it became the new backbone of the country's economy.

In 1808, when the Iberian Peninsula was invaded and occupied, the royal family escaped from Lisbon to Rio. In 1815, the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarves was established. On September 7, 1822, Prince Pedro of Brazil declared the country independent and on December 1, he was crowned emperor. The War of Independence of Brazil began in 1822 and ended in 1825. On March 8, 1824, the last Portuguese soldiers surrendered. In 1888, the practice of slavery was done and in 1889, after a military coup which deposed Emperor Pedro II, Brazil became a presidential republic, with Deodoro da Fonseca being the first president.

During World War I on October 26, 1917, Brazil declared war on the Central Powers. In 1923, Borges de Medeiros was re-elected as the president of the Rio Grande do Sul state. In 1930, the government continued industrial and agriculture growth and the country's vast interior. During World War II in August 1942, Brazil became an ally of the United States after suffering retaliation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and in addition to its participation in the battle of the Atlantic, Brazil sent an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign.

States[]

North Region[]

  • Acre
  • Amapà
  • Amazonas: The state where the 1997 film Anaconda is set in.
  • Para
  • Rondonia
  • Roraima
  • Tocantins

Northeast Region[]

  • Alagoas
  • Bahia
  • Ceara
  • Maranhao
  • Paraiba
  • Pernambuco
  • Piau
  • Rio Grande do Norte
  • Sergipe

Central-West Region[]

  • Federal District
  • Goias
  • Mato Grosso
  • Mato Grosso do Sul

Southeast Region[]

  • Espirito Santo
  • Minas Gerais
  • Rio de Janeiro: The state where actresses Jennifer O'Neill and Jossara Jinaro were born.
  • São Paulo: The state where actor Tino Bianchi was born

South Region[]

  • Parana
  • Rio Grande do Sul
  • Santa Catarina

Major Cities[]

  • Brasília
  • Rio de Janeiro
  • Salvador
  • São Paulo
  • Fortazela
  • Belo Horizonte
  • Manaus
  • Curitiba
  • Recife
  • Porto Alegre

Biodiversity[]

Gregory Moine - Red bellied Piranha (by)

The Red-bellied piranhas (Pygocentrus nattereri), one of Brazil's most infamous animals.

The Amazon rainforest is the most bio-diverse rain forest in the world, having approximately four million species of different animals and plants inhabiting it, including pumas, jaguars, ocelots, New World monkeys, sloths, tapirs, armadillos, opossums, peccaries, anteaters, rare bush dogs, and foxes, but one of the most infamous species is the red-bellied piranha, but despite its reputation as a dangerous carnivore, it is actually primarily a scavenger and forager, meaning that they tend to feed on dead animals in the wild and will mainly eat plants and insects. Deer can be found in the south while many New World Monkey species are found in the northern rain forests.

Almost 60% of the Amazon rain-forest is located in Brazil, mostly in the north region. In the north, the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado, sustain the greatest biodiversity while in the south, the Araucaria pine forest grows under temperate conditions. In the summer of 2019, the Brazilian states of Parana and Santa Catarina banned hydraulic fracturing, which will have positive effects on the climate and water quality, because the Shale gas and Shale oil reserved in the state of Parana is the larger in the southern hemisphere.

Demographics[]

Race and Ethnicity[]

According to the 2010 Census, 48% (around 91 million) of the population happens to be or identify as white. The majority of white Brazilians are descended from the Portuguese settlers who colonized their country in the late 15th century. Other ancestries include Italian, Spanish, German and other German-speaking countries (Austrian, Luxembourger, Swiss and Volga German) Slavic (Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, etc.), French and Baltic (Latvian and Lithuanian). A higher percentage of whites can be found in the south and southeastern regions from Santa Catarina to Sao Paulo.

44% (around 84 million) of the population identify as brown (or pardo in Portuguese and also moreno). It is a broad category that includes mulattoes (half-White half-Afro Brazilian), cablocos (half-White half-Native Brazilian) and cafuzos (half-Afro Brazilian half-Native Brazilian). Considerable miscegenation of Europeans, Native Brazilians, and Africans have taken place in all regions of Brazil since the Portuguese settlement in 1500. Higher percents of browns/multiracial people can be found in the northern regions from Amazonas to Ceara. 8% (around 14 million) of the population identifies as black, with the majority living in the northeast and southeast regions and being descended from Africans who were brought to Brazil as slaves during the period from 1501 to 1886. With Blacks and mulattoes making up 28% (56 million) of the country, Brazil has the largest African population outside of Africa.

1.2% (2 million) of Brazil is Asian, with the majority being of Japanese descent and living in Sao Paulo and Parana. The country has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan.  And 0.6% (approximately around 900 thousand) of the country is Amerindian. The National Indian Foundation estimated that the country has 67 different uncontacted tribes in 2007 and the country is believed to have the largest number of lost tribes in the world. A higher percentage of people with significant Amerindian blood can be found in the north and central-west regions.

Religion[]

Christianity is the largest religion in Brazil, with Roman Catholics being the main adherents and with 65% of the population. Religion in Brazil was formed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of African slaves and indigenous tribes. The famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro is one of the most recognized religious statues worldwide. The Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, Sao Paulo is the largest Catholic Church in the world besides St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

The secondary adherents are Protestants. Protestantism has a community that has grown to include over 22% of the population while other Christian denominations have communities that have grown to include over 1% of the population. Evangelical and Pentecostal are the most ordinary Protestant denominations in Brazil. Places with great proportions of Irreligious inhabitants in Brazil include Salvador, Porto Velho, and Boa Vista.

2% of the population practice Spiritism, a religion founded by French educator Allan Kardec which incorporates elements of spiritualism and Christianity.

Language[]

Portuguese is both the official and national language of Brazil. 99% (around 200 million) of the population speaks the language and is the only one virtually used in television, radio, newspapers, and for business. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas. There are also a total of 210 languages in the country, 180 are indigenous. Less than 40,000 people speak indigenous languages in Brazil and the population is around 210 million.

Brazilian Portuguese is also spoken wide across the Brazilian diaspora. Today, 3.1 million people from around the world are of Brazilian descent. Mostly in phonology, it is different from European and African Portuguese. You can compare these differences to those between British and American English.

Films that take place in Brazil[]

People[]

Characters from Brazil[]

  • Coffin Joe

People who were born in Brazil[]

Gallery[]

External Links[]

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