Brazil is the largest and easternmost country in South America and Latin America. Its formal name is the Federative Republic of Brazil. It is the seventh most populated and fifth-largest country in the world in terms of area. São Paulo is the most populated city, while Brasília serves as its capital. Brazil is made up of a Federal District in addition to 26 states. The only nation in the Americas with Portuguese as an official language is this one. Because of more than a century of widespread immigration from all over the world, Brazil is one of the most cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse countries in the world.
Brazil is a country with 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi) of coastline that is bounded to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With the exception of Ecuador and Chile, it borders every other nation and territory on the continent, making up around half of South America’s total land area. The Amazon basin of Brazil is home to a sizable tropical forest that supports a wide range of fauna, various biological systems, and abundant natural resources spread over many protected areas.
With its distinct environmental legacy, Brazil is ranked #1 among the 17 megadiverse nations. The natural wealth of the nation is also of great international importance as environmental deterioration (caused by acts like deforestation) directly affects global problems like biodiversity loss and climate change.
Until the explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral landed there in 1500, the region that is now Brazil was home to several tribal tribes. Brazil was thereafter annexed by the Portuguese Empire, which ruled it as a colony until 1808 when Rio de Janeiro replaced Lisbon as the empire’s capital. Following the establishment of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves in 1815, the colony was promoted to the status of kingdom. After gaining independence in 1822, the Empire of Brazil was established as a unitary state with a legislative government and a constitutional monarchy. After the first constitution was ratified in 1824, the National Congress—a bicameral legislature—was established. In 1888, slavery was outlawed.
After a military coup d’état in 1889, the nation became a presidential republic. In 1964, an authoritarian military dictatorship came to power; it lasted until 1985 when civilian government was reinstated. Brazil is classified as a democratic federal republic under the 1988 constitution. The nation is home to thirteen UNESCO World Heritage Sites, placing it thirteenth in the world overall due to its rich cultural heritage.
Brazil is a key non-NATO ally of the United States and a rising regional and middle power. Brazil, classified as a developing nation and ranked 89th on the Human Development Index, is regarded as an advanced emerging economy with the eighth-largest nominal and PPP GDP in the world—the highest in the Southern Hemisphere and Latin America. Brazil has the greatest wealth share and most complicated economy in South America, being categorized as a recently industrialized nation by the IMF and an upper-middle income country by the World Bank. Being the world’s top producer of coffee for the past 150 years, it is also one of the primary breadbaskets of the globe.
Even with its expanding economy and international recognition, the nation nevertheless has high rates of social inequality, crime, and corruption. In addition to being an observer state in the Arab League, Brazil is a founding member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Organization of American States, the G20, the BRICS, the G4, Mercosul, and the Organization of American States.
Etymology
Brazil’s name most likely derives from the Portuguese term for brazilwood, a tree that was previously widely distributed along the country’s coast. Brazilian wood is referred to as pau-brasil in Portuguese. The term brasil derives from the words brasa (meaning “ember”) and the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium), meaning “red like an ember.” Alternatively, it has been proposed that this is a folk etymology of a plant name derived from an Asian or Arabic term for a red plant. Brazilwood was the first Brazilian commodity to be economically utilized, and it was highly appreciated by the European textile industry because it provides a rich red dye.
Massive quantities of Brazilwood were mined along the Brazilian coast throughout the 16th century by indigenous peoples, mostly Tupi. These people then sold the timber to European traders, primarily Portuguese but also French, in exchange for various consumer products from Europe.
Because of the Brazilian trade, European sailors and merchants referred to the country as the “Land of Brazil” (Terra do Brasil), even though the official Portuguese name in ancient Portuguese documents was the “Land of the Holy Cross” (Terra da Santa Cruz). The original Portuguese term was subsequently overshadowed and replaced by the common nomenclature. It was known as the “Land of Parrots” by some early seafarers.
The name “Pindorama” (meaning “land of the palm trees”) comes from the Guaraní language, which is the official language of Paraguay, Brazil.
History
Pre-Cabraline era
In the vicinity of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais, some of the oldest human remains discovered in the Americas, known as Luzia Woman, were discovered. These bones offer proof of human settlement dating back at least 11,000 years. Excavated in the Brazilian Amazon basin, the oldest pottery discovered in the Western Hemisphere was radiocarbon, dating to 8,000 years ago (6000 BC).
The pottery, which was discovered close to Santarém, shows that the area was home to a sophisticated ancient society. From AD 400 to 1400, the Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta, producing intricate social structures including chiefdoms, skilled ceramics, enormous populations, and social stratification.
An estimated 7 million indigenous people lived in the region that is now Brazil at the time of the Portuguese invasion. These people were primarily semi-nomadic and relied on migratory agriculture, hunting, fishing, and gathering. Many sizable indigenous ethnic groups made up the population, including the Tupis, Guaranis, Gês, and Arawaks. The Tupiniquins and Tupinambás were two divisions of the Tupi people.
Before the advent of the Europeans, conflicts resulting from disparities in language, culture, and moral convictions delineated the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups. Along with extensive military operations on land and at sea, these conflicts featured cannibalistic customs involving POWs. Leadership was a position more earned over time than given out via succession rites and traditions, however, genetics played a role. Since slavery emerged from a distinct social structure in which familial links translated imbalances, it had a different meaning for indigenous tribes than it did for Europeans.
Portuguese colonization
After the Tordesillas Treaty of 1494, the Portuguese Empire asserted its claim to present-day Brazil on April 22, 1500, when Pedro Álvares Cabral’s Portuguese fleet arrived. The indigenous peoples the Portuguese encountered were separated into many ethnic communities, with the majority speaking Tupi-Guarani languages and engaging in inter-ethnic warfare. Even though the first settlement was established in 1532, King John III of Portugal’s division of the region into fifteen private and independent captains marked the official start of colonization in 1534.
The Portuguese king, however, reorganized the captaincies in 1549 to form the Governorate General of Brazil in Salvador, which became the seat of a single, unified Portuguese colony in South America, due to the captaincies’ disorganized and decentralized tendencies. Indigenous and European communities lived in continual conflict throughout the first 200 years of colonialism, forming shrewd partnerships to gain an advantage over one another.
By the middle of the 16th century, Brazil’s main export was cane sugar; however, due to the growing demand for Brazilian sugar abroad, Brazil’s largest import was slaves bought in Sub-Saharan Africa from the slave market in Western Africa (not just slaves from Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique). Between 1500 and 1800, around 2.8 million African slaves were brought to Brazil.
The discovery of gold by Bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new foundation of the colony’s economy by the end of the 17th century when sugarcane exports started to decline. This led to a gold rush that brought thousands of new settlers from Portugal and other Portuguese colonies around the world to Brazil. As a result of this increasing immigration, there were some disputes between the new and the established inhabitants.
Brazil’s initial colonial limits in South America were progressively stretched to roughly its present borders by Portuguese expeditions known as bandeiras. Other European countries attempted to conquer sections of Brazil during this time, forcing the Portuguese to repel their assaults. These included the French in Rio in the 1560s, the Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco during the Dutch-Portuguese War that followed the dissolution of the Iberian Union, and the French in Maranhão during the 1610s.
In order to maintain colonial order and the monopoly of Portugal’s richest and largest colony, the Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil sought to repress all movements for autonomy or independence, such as the Minas Gerais Conspiracy, and to keep under control and eradicate all forms of slave rebellion and resistance, like the Quilombo of Palmares.
Elevation to kingdom
When the security of continental Portugal was endangered in late 1807 by Spanish and Napoleonic armies, Prince Regent John moved the royal court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro on behalf of Queen Maria I. It was there that they founded the National Bank and several of Brazil’s earliest financial institutions, including local stock exchanges. They also broke the Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian commerce and opened Brazil’s ports to foreign trade. French Guiana was commanded to be conquered by the Prince Regent in 1809 as payback for being sent into exile.
The European courts, believing it improper for the head of an antiquated European monarchy to live in a colony, requested that Queen Maria I and Prince Regent John return to Portugal following the conclusion of the Peninsular War in 1814. In 1815, the Crown founded the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves, a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state, as a way to justify staying on in Brazil, where the royal court had prospered for six years. However, the Portuguese government persisted in calling for the court to be moved back to Lisbon, bitter at the bigger colony’s new position (see Liberal Revolution of 1820).
John VI left for Lisbon in 1821 after yielding to the demands of revolutionaries who had captured the city of Porto. After taking an oath to uphold the new constitution there, he left his son, Prince Pedro de Alcântara, in the position of Regent of the Brazilian Kingdom.
Independent empire
As hostilities between Portuguese and Brazilians grew, the Portuguese Cortes attempted to reestablish Brazil as a colony under the auspices of the newly enforced Liberal Revolutionary political government. Prince Pedro chose to support the Brazilians in their refusal to give up, and on September 7, 1822, he proclaimed the nation’s independence from Portugal. The Brazilian Empire was established a month later when Prince Pedro was crowned the country’s first Emperor and given the title Dom Pedro I.
Along this path, the already-started Brazilian War of Independence moved to the northeast and north, as well as to the province of Cisplatina. On March 8, 1824, the last Portuguese forces were forced to surrender; on August 29, 1825, Portugal formally acknowledged Brazil’s independence.
Pedro I abdicated the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-year-old son and heir, Dom Pedro II, and left for Portugal on April 7, 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberal and conservative sides of politics, including an attempt of republican secession and unreconciled to the way absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI.
The National Assembly established a regency since the new Emperor could not exercise his constitutional rights until he reached legal adulthood. A number of small-scale uprisings occurred during this time due to the lack of a charismatic leader who could portray a moderate face of power. These included the Sabinada (Bahia), the Cabanagem in Grão-Pará, the Malê Revolt in Salvador, the Balaiada (Maranhão), and the Ragamuffin War, which started in Rio Grande do Sul and was backed by Giuseppe Garibaldi.
These resulted from long-standing social tensions unique to a sizable, slave-owning nation-state, as well as the provinces’ discontent with the central government. Only years after the regency came to an end with Pedro II’s hurried coronation in 1841, toward the end of the 1840s, was this era of internal political and social turmoil—which included the Praieira insurrection in Pernambuco—overcome.
During the latter years of the monarchy, internal political discussion concentrated on the problem of slavery. The British Aberdeen Act and the Eusébio de Queirós Law ended the Atlantic slave trade in 1850, but it wasn’t until May 1888—after much internal debate and mobilization for the moral and legal deconstruction of slavery in the nation—that the institution was officially abolished with the ratification of the Golden Law.
The monarchy’s foreign policy addressed matters pertaining to Brazil’s boundaries with the Southern Cone nations. During the 58-year rule of Pedro II, Brazil emerged victorious in three foreign wars: the Platine military, the Uruguayan War, and the devastating Paraguayan War, which was the biggest military effort in Brazilian history, long after the Cisplatine War that led to Uruguay’s independence.
While most Brazilians had no desire to alter the nation’s system of government, on November 15, 1889, a military coup overthrew the monarchy because it disagreed with most Imperial Army officers and the rural and financial elites (for various reasons). A few days later, a new design featuring the positivist national motto “Ordem e Progresso” took the place of the old flag. Republic Day, observed on November 15, is currently a federal holiday.
Early republic
The army controlled events in Rio de Janeiro and the states during the early republican administration, which was a military dictatorship. Press freedom vanished, and the powerful dominated the electoral process. It wasn’t until 1894, after both a military and economic catastrophe, that civilians seized authority; they held that position until October 1930.
During this first republican era, the nation’s foreign policy was characterized by a relative balance that was only disrupted by the Acre War (1899–1902) and its involvement in World War I (1914–1918), which was followed by a failed attempt to take a leading role in the League of Nations; From the Encilhamento crisis and the Navy Revolts, there was an internal cycle of political, economic, and social instability that lasted until the 1920s and kept the nation under constant threat from both military and civilian uprisings.
Gradually, a series of widespread unrest brought about by these crises weakened the government to the point where, following the assassination of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas led the successful Revolution of 1930 with the backing of the majority of the armed forces. Vargas and the armed forces were meant to take over temporarily, but instead, they shut down Congress, revoked the Constitution, imposed emergency powers, and installed his own loyalists as state governors in lieu of the outgoing governors.
Three efforts to depose Vargas and his allies were unsuccessful in the 1930s. The first was the 1932 Constitutionalist Revolution, spearheaded by the oligarchy of São Paulo. The final one was a putsch attempt by local fascists in May 1938, while the second was a Communist insurrection in November 1935. The 1935 rebellion caused a security situation in which Congress ceded additional power to the executive branch. The 1938 election was called off following the 1937 coup d’état, which also established Vargas as the official dictator and ushered in the Estado Novo period. Press restrictions and government violence escalated during this time.
Brazil stayed neutral during World War II until August 1942, when it was forced to join the Allied forces after suffering reprisal from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in a strategic conflict over the South Atlantic. Brazil contributed an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian war in addition to its involvement in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Vargas’s position became untenable after the Allied triumph in 1945 and the fall of the fascist governments in Europe. He was quickly removed in another military coup, and democracy was “reinstated” by the same army that had brought it to an end fifteen years earlier. Vargas, who had been re-elected in 1950, committed suicide in August 1954 during a political crisis.
Geography
Brazil shares land borders with Uruguay to the south, Argentina and Paraguay to the southwest, Bolivia, and Peru to the west, Colombia to the northwest, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, and France (the French overseas region of French Guiana) to the north. Brazil occupies a large area along the eastern coast of South America and includes much of the continent’s interior. With the exception of Ecuador and Chile, all of the South American countries are border-shared.
A number of marine archipelagos, including Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, Trindade, and Martim Vaz, are also included in the Brazilian territory. Brazil has a varied geography due to its size, terrain, temperature, and abundance of natural resources. Brazil is located between latitudes 6°N and 34°S and longitudes 28° and 74°W, including its Atlantic islands.
With a total size of 8,515,767.049 km2 (3,287,956 sq mi), including 55,455 km2 (21,411 sq mi) of water, Brazil is the fifth biggest nation in the world and the third largest in the Americas. Brazil is the only nation in the world with both the Tropic of Capricorn and the equator passing through it.
It is also the longest country in the world, measuring 4,395 km (2,731 mi) from north to south. It covers four time zones: UTC−5, which includes the westernmost part of Amazonas and the state of Acre; UTC−4, which is the national time in the western states; UTC−3, which is the eastern states; and UTC−2, which is the Atlantic islands.
Climate
Brazil has a diverse geography and a broad range of weather conditions, yet the majority of the nation experiences tropical weather. The six main climatic categories found in Brazil are desert, equatorial, tropical, semiarid, oceanic, and subtropical, according to the Köppen classification. The diverse climates result in a variety of ecosystems, including tropical savannas in central Brazil, temperate coniferous forests in the south, equatorial rainforests in the north, and semiarid deserts in the northeast.
In Brazil forest cover is roughly 59% of the total land area, corresponding to 496,619,600 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 588,898,000 hectares (ha) in 1990. 2020 saw 11,223,600 hectares (ha) of planted forest and 485,396,000 hectares (ha) of naturally renewing forest.
About thirty percent of the naturally regenerating forest was located within protected areas, and forty-four percent of the forest was described as primary forest, meaning it consisted of native tree species with no obvious signs of human activity. According to reports, 44% of the forest area was privately owned in 2015, while 56.0% was owned by the public.
Microclimates vary greatly between several locations. The climate in much of northern Brazil is equatorial. The time of year when most of the rain falls varies, although there isn’t really a dry season. The average temperature is 25 °C (77 °F), with nighttime variations being larger than seasonal variations. Rainfall in central Brazil is more cyclical, which is indicative of a savanna environment. This region is just as large as the Amazon basin, but since it is higher and farther south, it has a radically different climate. The seasonal rainfall is significantly more intense in the deep northeast.
The rainfall distribution shifts, with rain falling all year long in the southernmost part of the state of São Paulo and the coastal areas south of Bahia. The south has subtropical weather, with mild winters and yearly averages that seldom rise over 18 °C (64.4 °F); in the higher regions, snowfall and winter frosts are commonplace.
Less than 800 millimeters (31.5 in) of rainfall on average in the semiarid climatic zone each year; most of this falls during three to five months of the year, and often less than this, resulting in protracted droughts. The deadliest drought in Brazil’s history, the Grande Seca (Great Drought) of 1877–1878 claimed about half a million lives. There was another equally destructive drought in 1915. It is the biggest drought in Brazil since measurements began in the 1950s, affecting about 60% of the nation’s land, and in 2024 “a drought has covered all the way from the North to the country’s Southeast.” Climate change and deforestation are related to the drought.
Topography and hydrograph
The terrain of Brazil is likewise varied, with lowlands, highlands, hills, and scrublands. A large portion of the land is situated between 200 meters (660 feet) and 800 meters (2,600 feet) above sea level. The majority of the southern half of the nation is made up of the primary highland region. The plateau’s northwest regions are made up of wide, undulating land with low, rounded hills interspersed throughout.
With a complicated mass of hills and mountain ranges that reach altitudes of up to 1,200 meters (3,900 feet), the southeast region is more untamed. The Mantiqueira, Espinhaço, and Serra do Mar mountain ranges are among them. The Guiana Highlands create a significant drainage divide in the north, dividing rivers that discharge into the Venezuelan Orinoco River system to the north from those that flow south into the Amazon Basin. The Atlantic Ocean is the lowest point in Brazil, while Pico da Neblina, at 2,994 meters (9,823 feet), is the highest.
Brazil boasts one of the densest and most intricate river systems in the world, with eight main drainage basins that empty into the Atlantic. Prominent waterways comprise the Amazon, which is the second-longest and biggest river globally in terms of water volume; the Paraná and its principal tributary, the Iguaçu, which encompasses the Iguazu Falls; the Negro, São Francisco, Xingu, Madeira, and Tapajós rivers in addition.
Economy
Natural resources abound in Brazil’s mixed market economy, which has an upper-middle income level. Its economy is the biggest in Latin America, ranking seventh globally in terms of nominal GDP and eighth in terms of PPP. The nation went into an ongoing recession in 2014 amid widespread demonstrations and a government corruption scandal, following decades of tremendous expansion.
Brazil, a developing nation, is home to almost 100 million people, making up the fifth-largest workforce in the world. As of 2021, the country’s high unemployment rate was 14.4%. It has the tenth-highest foreign exchange reserves worldwide. In terms of market value, the B3 stock exchange located in São Paulo is the biggest in Latin America. roughly 1.9% of people live in poverty, making $2.15 per day, while roughly 19% make $6.85 per day. High levels of economic inequality and pervasive corruption plague Brazil’s economy. The official currency of Brazil is the real.
Brazil has a diverse economy that encompasses several industries, services, and agriculture. The agriculture sector is by far the smallest, accounting for only 6.6% of the GDP, whereas the massive service sector accounts for around 72.7% of the GDP, followed by the industrial sector (20.7%).
In addition to being one of the world’s top producers of a wide range of agricultural products, 50% of Brazil’s food comes from its sizable cooperative sector. For the past 150 years, it has been the biggest producer of coffee in the world. Brazil ranks among the top 5 producers of maize, cotton, lemon, tobacco, pineapple, banana, beans, coconut, watermelon, and papaya. It is also among the top 10 producers of cocoa, cashew, mango, rice, tomato, sorghum, tangerine, avocado, persimmon, and guava. Moreover, Brazil is the world’s largest producer of sugarcane, soy, coffee, and oranges. In terms of livestock, it is in the top five global producers of beef, pig, poultry meat, and cow’s milk.
Brazil is among the top producers of iron ore, copper, gold, bauxite, manganese, tin, niobium, and nickel in the mining industry. Brazil is a major producer of tourmaline, emerald, aquamarine, garnet, and opal, and is the world’s greatest producer of amethyst, topaz, and agate. Soy, iron ore, cellulose pulp, maize, beef, chicken meat, soybean meal, sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, orange juice, footwear, automobiles, vehicle components, aircraft, vehicles, gold, ethanol, and semi-finished iron are among the many goods that the nation exports in large quantities.
As of 2021, Brazil ranked 26th in terms of imports and 24th in terms of exports worldwide. With 32 percent of all commerce, China is its biggest trading partner. The United States, Argentina, the Netherlands, and Canada are some of our other major commercial partners. It is the eighth-largest automotive sector globally.
In terms of the food sector, Brazil ranked as the world’s second-largest exporter of processed foods in 2019. In 2016, the nation ranked seventh in the world for paper production and second in the world for pulp. In 2019, Brazil ranked as the fourth-largest manufacturer in the footwear sector. Additionally, it ranked as the world’s ninth-largest producer of steel. Brazil has the eighth-largest chemical industry in the world in 2018.
Despite ranking among the top five global manufacturers in 2013, Brazil’s textile sector has relatively limited integration with global trade.
According to the IBGE, commerce and services, or the tertiary sector, accounted for 75.8% of the nation’s GDP in 2018. Trade accounted for 13% of GDP, while the service sector accounted for 60%. It covers a wide range of activities: commerce, accommodation and catering, transport, communications, financial services, real estate activities and services provided to businesses, public administration (urban cleaning, sanitation, etc.), and other services such as education, social and health services, research and development, sports activities, etc. since it consists of activities complementary to other sectors. Thirty percent of the nation’s GDP comes from micro and small firms. For instance, among the commercial sector’s operations, they account for 53% of the GDP.
Tourism
In Brazil, the tourism industry is expanding and plays a significant role in the economies of several areas. In terms of foreign tourist arrivals, the nation welcomed 6.36 million tourists in 2015, making it the most popular destination in South America and the second most popular in Latin America, after Mexico.
2010 saw US$6 billion in revenue from foreign visitors, indicating a comeback from the 2008–2009 financial crisis. 2011 saw historical highs of 5.4 million tourists and US$6.8 billion in revenue. Brazil ranked 48th out of all countries in the world for tourism in 2018, with 6.6 million visitors and $5.9 billion in revenue.
Its most popular tourist offering is natural regions, which combine ecotourism with leisure and recreation—mostly beach and sun—adventure travel, and cultural tourism. The Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast, the Pantanal in the Center-West, beaches in Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, Minas Gerais’ cultural tourism, and corporate travel to São Paulo are some of the most well-liked travel destinations.
Brazil ranked third in the Americas and 28th overall in the world according to the 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which measures the factors that make it desirable to develop business in each country’s travel and tourism industry. The United States and Canada ranked first and second respectively.
One important market niche for Brazil’s tourism sector is domestic travel. 51 million Brazilian citizens traveled abroad 10 times more frequently and spent five times more money than visitors from other countries in 2005. São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul were the primary travel destination states in 2023. São Paulo state is the primary supplier of tourism for the entire nation. São Paulo and Bahia were the top-earning states in terms of tourism revenues. Seeking friends and relatives (53.1%), enjoying the sun and beach (40.8%), and engaging in cultural tourism (12.5%) were the top three reasons for traveling in 2005.
Transportation
The main means of transportation for both passengers and freight in Brazil are the roadways. In 2019, the road network covered 1,720,000 km (1,068,758 mi). Between 1967 and 2018, the total length of paved roads expanded from 35,496 km (22,056 km) to 215,000 km (133,595 mi).
After highway building became the primary focus in 1945, Brazil’s railway system began to deteriorate. The nation has the tenth biggest railway network in the world, with a total track length of 30,576 km (18,999 mi) in 2015 compared to 31,848 km (19,789 km) in 1970. The Federal Railroad Network Corporation (RFFSA), which was privatized in 2007, owned the majority of the railway network. On September 14, 1974, the São Paulo Metro went into service, becoming Brazil’s first subterranean transit system.
Brazil has over 2,500 airports, including landing strips; it is the country with the second-highest number of airports worldwide, behind the United States. Near São Paulo, São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport is the nation’s busiest and largest airport, accommodating around 43 million people yearly and serving the bulk of commercial flights.
Waterways are important for freight movement. For example, the Solimões–Amazonas waterway (3,250 km or 2,020 mi in length, with a minimum depth of six meters or 20 feet) is the sole method to access the industrial zones of Manaus. There are also 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) of waterways in the nation. Coastal shipping connects geographically dispersed regions of the nation.
At Santos, free ports have been granted to Bolivia and Paraguay. Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus, and São Francisco do Sul are the most significant of the 36 deep-water ports. While container ships receive maintenance every 36.3 hours on average, bulk carriers must wait up to 18 days for maintenance.
Culture
Because of its close colonial links to the Portuguese Empire, Brazil’s basic culture is inherited from Portuguese culture. The Portuguese brought colonial architectural styles, Roman Catholicism, and the Portuguese language, among other things. Additionally, African, indigenous, and non-Portuguese European cultures and customs had a significant effect on the culture.
The contributions of Italian, German, and other European immigrants, as well as Japanese, Jewish, and Arab immigrants, who arrived in considerable numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, had an impact on some parts of Brazilian culture. Africans impacted language, food, music, dance, and religion; indigenous Americans inspired Brazil’s language and cuisine.
Since the 16th century, Brazilian art has evolved into a variety of genres, including Baroque, which predominated there until the early 19th century, as well as Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstractionism. Brazilian film has garnered international recognition since the 1960s and traces its origins to the late 19th century.
Architecture
Europe, particularly Portugal, had an effect on Brazilian architecture. Its past dates back 500 years, to the year 1500, when Pedro Álvares Cabral arrived in Brazil. The first wave of architecture to arrive in Brazil was Portuguese colonial design. All Brazilian architecture from succeeding centuries is based on it. During the 19th century, Brazil’s Empire followed European architectural trends and embraced Neoclassical and Gothic Revival styles. Following that, Brazil experimented with modernist architecture throughout the 20th century, particularly in Brasília.
Brazil’s colonial architecture began in the early 16th century when the Portuguese began to explore, conquer, and inhabit the country. In an attempt to colonize Brazil, the Portuguese constructed buildings that they were acquainted with from Europe. In Brazil’s towns and countryside, they constructed Portuguese colonial architecture, such as churches and municipal buildings including homes and forts.
Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture, among other European architectural forms, were introduced to Brazil in the 19th century. This was often combined with native Brazilian elements to create a distinctive style of Brazilian architecture.
When Brasília was constructed as the new federal capital in the interior of Brazil in the 1950s to aid in the development of the interior, modernist architecture was implemented. Oscar Niemeyer, a modernist architect, idealized and constructed civic, religious, and governmental structures.
Literature
Brazilian literature began with the writings of the first Portuguese explorers in the country, including Pero Vaz de Caminha, in the 16th century. These works captivated European readers with their descriptions of the local flora and wildlife as well as their comments on the indigenous inhabitants.
Important Romantic novels were written in Brazil by authors like Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and José de Alencar, who explored love and suffering in their stories. Throughout his extensive career, Alencar portrayed native Americans as heroes in the Indigenist books O Guarani, Iracema, and Ubirajara. One of his contemporaries, Machado de Assis, wrote in almost every genre and is still gaining recognition from critics throughout the globe.
Brazilian Modernism, evidenced by the Modern Art Week in 1922, was concerned with nationalist avant-garde literature, while 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.
The Camões Prize, which Brazil shares with the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world, is the country’s most important literary honor. There have been eleven Brazilian winners of the honor as of 2016. The Brazilian Academy of Letters is a non-profit cultural institution dedicated to preserving the preservation of the country’s literature and language. Brazil also has its own literary academy.
