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Travel to Brazil — Unbiased reviews and
great deals from TripAdvisorBrazil
| Federative Republic of Brazil National name: República
Federativa do Brasil President: Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva (2003)
Current government officials
Land area: 3,265,059 sq mi (8,456,511 sq
km); total area: 3,286,470 sq mi (8,511,965 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 191,908,598 (growth
rate: 0.9%); birth rate: 16.0/1000; infant mortality rate: 26.6/1000;
life expectancy: 72.5; density per sq km: 22
Capital (2003 est.):
Brasília, 2,160,100 Largest cities: São Paulo,
18,333,000 (metro. area), 10,927,985 (city proper); Rio de Janeiro,
11,469,000 (metro. area), 6,094,183 (city proper); Salvador,
2,590,400; Belo Horizonte, 2,347,500; Recife, 1,485,500; Porto Alegre,
1,372,700 Monetary unit: Real
Languages:
Portuguese (official), Spanish, English,
French
Ethnicity/race:
white 53.7%, mulatto (mixed white and black)
38.5%, black 6.2%, other (includes Japanese, Arab, Amerindian) 0.9%,
unspecified 0.7% (2000)
National Holiday:
Independence Day, September 7
Religion:
Roman Catholic 74%, Protestant 15%, Spiritualist
1%, none 7% (2000) Literacy rate:
88.6% (2006 est.) Economic summary:
GDP/PPP (2007 est.): $1.836 trillion; per capita $9,700.
Real growth rate: 5.4%. Inflation: 3.6%.
Unemployment: 9.3%. Arable land: 7%. Agriculture:
coffee, soybeans, wheat, rice, corn, sugarcane, cocoa, citrus; beef.
Labor force: 96.34 million; agriculture 20%, industry 14%,
services 66% (2006 est.). Industries: textiles, shoes,
chemicals, cement, lumber, iron ore, tin, steel, aircraft, motor
vehicles and parts, other machinery and equipment. Natural
resources: bauxite, gold, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates,
platinum, tin, uranium, petroleum, hydropower, timber. Exports:
$137.5 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.): transport equipment, iron ore,
soybeans, footwear, coffee, autos. Imports: $91.4 billion
f.o.b. (2006 est.): machinery, electrical and transport equipment,
chemical products, oil. Major trading partners: U.S.,
Argentina, China, Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, Nigeria, Japan
(2005). Communications: Telephones:
main lines in use: 42.382 million (2004); mobile cellular: 86.21
million (2005). Radio broadcast stations: AM 1,365, FM 296,
shortwave 161 (of which 91 are collocated with AM stations) (1999).
Television broadcast stations: 138 (1997). Internet
hosts: 3,163,349 (2003). Internet users: 25.9 million
(2005). Transportation: Railways:
total: 29,252 km (1598 km electrified) (2005). Highways: total:
1,751,868 km; paved: 96,353 km; unpaved: 1,655,515 km (2005).
Waterways: 50,000 km (most in areas remote from industry and
population) (2005). Ports and harbors: Gebig, Itaqui, Rio de
Janeiro, Rio Grande, San Sebasttiao, Santos, Sepetiba Terminal,
Tubarao, Vitoria. Airports: 4,276 (2006 est.). International disputes: unruly region at
convergence of Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay borders is locus of money
laundering, smuggling, arms and illegal narcotics trafficking, and
fundraising for extremist organizations; uncontested dispute with
Uruguay over certain islands in the Quarai/Cuareim and Invernada
boundary streams and the resulting tripoint with Argentina; in 2004
Brazil submitted its claims to UNCLOS to extend its maritime
continental margin.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Brazil covers nearly half of South America and
is the continent's largest nation. It extends 2,965 mi (4,772 km)
north-south, 2,691 mi (4,331 km) east-west, and borders every nation on
the continent except Chile and Ecuador. Brazil may be divided into the
Brazilian Highlands, or plateau, in the south and the Amazon River Basin
in the north. Over a third of Brazil is drained by the Amazon and its more
than 200 tributaries. The Amazon is navigable for ocean steamers to
Iquitos, Peru, 2,300 mi (3,700 km) upstream. Southern Brazil is drained by
the Plata system—the Paraguay, Uruguay, and Paraná
rivers.
Government
Federal republic.
History
Brazil is the only Latin American nation that
derives its language and culture from Portugal. The native inhabitants
mostly consisted of the nomadic Tupí-Guaraní Indians. Adm.
Pedro Alvares Cabral claimed the territory for Portugal in 1500. The early
explorers brought back a wood that produced a red dye, pau-brasil,
from which the land received its name. Portugal began colonization in 1532
and made the area a royal colony in 1549.
During the Napoleonic Wars, King João VI,
fearing the advancing French armies, fled Portugal in 1808 and set up his
court in Rio de Janeiro. João was drawn home in 1820 by a
revolution, leaving his son as regent. When Portugal tried to reimpose
colonial rule, the prince declared Brazil's independence on Sept. 7, 1822,
becoming Pedro I, emperor of Brazil. Harassed by his parliament, Pedro I
abdicated in 1831 in favor of his five-year-old son, who became emperor in
1840 (Pedro II). The son was a popular monarch, but discontent built up,
and in 1889, following a military revolt, he abdicated. Although a
republic was proclaimed, Brazil was ruled by military dictatorships until
a revolt permitted a gradual return to stability under civilian
presidents.
President Wenceslau Braz cooperated with the
Allies and declared war on Germany during World War I. In World War II,
Brazil again cooperated with the Allies, welcoming Allied air bases,
patrolling the South Atlantic, and joining the invasion of Italy after
declaring war on the Axis powers.
After a military coup in 1964, Brazil had a
series of military governments. Gen. João Baptista de Oliveira
Figueiredo became president in 1979 and pledged a return to democracy in
1985. The election of Tancredo Neves on Jan. 15, 1985, the first civilian
president since 1964, brought a nationwide wave of optimism, but when
Neves died several months later, Vice President José Sarney became
president. Collor de Mello won the election of late 1989, pledging to
lower hyperinflation with free-market economics. When Collor faced
impeachment by Congress because of a corruption scandal in Dec. 1992 and
resigned, Vice President Itamar Franco assumed the presidency.
A former finance minister, Fernando Cardoso, won
the presidency in the Oct. 1994 election with 54% of the vote. Cardoso
sold off inefficient government-owned monopolies in the
telecommunications, electrical power, port, mining, railway, and banking
industries.
In Jan. 1999, the Asian economic crisis spread
to Brazil. Rather than prop up the currency through financial markets,
Brazil opted to let the currency float, which sent the real
plummeting—at one time as much as 40%. Cardoso was highly praised by
the international community for quickly turning around his country's
economic crisis. Despite his efforts, however, the economy continued to
slow throughout 2001, and the country also faced an energy crisis. The IMF
offered Brazil an additional aid package in Aug. 2001. And in Aug. 2002,
to ensure that Brazil would not be dragged down by neighboring Argentina's
catastrophic economic problems, the IMF agreed to lend Brazil a phenomenal
$30 billion over fifteen months.
In Jan. 2003, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
a former trade union leader and factory worker widely known by the name
Lula, became Brazil's first working-class president. As leader of Brazil's
only Socialist party, the Workers' Party, Lula pledged to increase social
services and improve the lot of the poor. But he also recognized that a
distinctly nonsocialist program of fiscal austerity was needed to rescue
the economy. The president's first major legislative success was a plan to
reform the country's debt-ridden pension system, which operated under an
annual $20 billion deficit. Civil servants staged massive strikes opposing
this and other reforms. Although public debt and inflation remained a
problem in 2004, Brazil's economy showed signs of growth and unemployment
was down. Polls in Aug. 2004 demonstrated that the majority of Brazilians
supported Lula's tough economic reform efforts. He combined his
conservative fiscal policies with ambitious antipoverty programs, raising
the country's minimum wage by 25% and introducing an ambitious social
welfare program, Bolsa Familia, which has pulled 36 million people
(20% of the population) out of deep poverty.
In 2005, an unfolding bribery scandal weakened
Lula's administration and led to the resignation of several high
government officials. Lula issued a televised apology in August, promising
“drastic measures” to reform the political system. By the
following year, his popularity had rebounded as he continued a successful
balancing act between fiscal responsibility and a strong social welfare
system. But after another corruption scandal surfaced right before the
Oct. 2006 election, Lula won only 48.6% of the vote, forcing a runoff
election on Oct. 29 in which Lula garnered 60.8% of the vote, retaining
his office.
Brazil suffered its worst aviation accident in
its history in July 2007, when an Airbus 320 skidded off a runway in
São Paulo and crashed into an office building, killing 176 people.
The accident sparked a crisis in Brazil and led to the cancellation or
delay of hundreds of flights and the firing of the defense minister, who
oversaw civil aviation.
A new oil field, called Tupi, was discovered
16,000 feet below the ocean's floor on November 8, 2007. Tupi will yield
five to eight billion barrels of crude oil and natural gas, making it the
largest oil field discovered since Kashagan Field in Kazakhstan in
2000.
Rio de Janeiro experienced a dengue fever
outbreak in 2008 that killed more than 80 people and infected at least
75,399.
After a three-year decline, the National
Institute for Space Research reported that the deforestation rate in
Brazil during 2008 increased 228% over 2007.
Brazil signed a defense agreement worth more
than $12 billion with France in December 2008 as part of an expanding
military strategy to protect the Amazon and recently-discovered deep-water
oil fields.
See also Encyclopedia: Brazil
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Brazil
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE)
www.ibge.gov.br/ .
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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