Brazil

Discovery
Brazil, where Brazilian Portuguese is spoken, was discovered in 1500 and one of its distinguishing features is its racial and cultural mix. The Portuguese, who were the first colonizers mixed with the indigenous people, who had been here for thousands of years, and the black Africans, who were brought here to work in slavery, which was abolished in 1888. Immigrants from over 50 countries, who have raised their families in this new country, have been added to this blend. This miscegenation is certainly one of the factors responsible for the kind, friendly nature of the Brazilian people, who welcome those who visit Brazil with open arms. This people, who used to welcome immigrants, now welcome tourists, who easily feel at home in the country.

Area
Few countries offer such a quantity and variety of tourist options as Brazil. Its continental size – more than 8 million km2 - makes it is the fifth largest country in the world. It is smaller than only Russia, Canada, the United States and China, and occupies almost half of South America. From North to South and from East to West, the distances are greater than those from New York to Los Angeles and from Moscow to Lisbon. It is home to such contrasting ecosystems as the Amazon Forest and The Atlantic Forest, with their incredibly lush forestry, the Savannah and the Caatinga (Thorn Forest), with their crooked trees and the landscape that alters radically according to the season, and the Pantanal (wetlands), with its plains that flood during the rainy season and are the origin of a rich chain of animal reproduction.

Crossed by the Equator in the North and the Tropic of Capricorn in the South, Brazil occupies an area equivalent to 16 times that of France, 23 times that of Germany, or 28 times that of Italy. This area is almost all situated in the low altitude, inter-tropical zone, where average temperatures above 20 °C predominate. For the tourist, this offers the possibility of enjoying one of the hundreds of beaches that are spread out along the 7,400 kilometers of privileged coastline, all year round. There are ideal winds for sailing and options to suit all tastes: peaceful beaches and white sand, beaches with rough seas that are ideal for surfers, urban beaches with a lot or visitors or semi-wild beaches, where only a few people have ever been. All beaches, in Brazil, are public.

Geographical Division
Brazil is divided into five geographical regions - North, Northeast, Midwest, South and Southeast, with very different tourist options offered by each of them. Even though they all have one thing in common - the country’s natural beauty - each of them displays characteristics which make discovering Brazil an adventure that covers everything from rivers, valleys and mountains of rare beauty, to a colonial past and a history that began in the 16th century.
Visiting the North of Brazil, for example, means visiting the Amazon Region, its rivers and forest. This region, which is made up of the states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Roraima, Rondônia and Tocantins, offers options which mainly include trips, fishing and lodging in the middle of the forest, but also includes visiting cities that flourished at the start if the twentieth century, during the rubber boom, such as Manaus, in Amazonas. It also means the chance to visit a region considered by Unesco to be a Human Heritage Site: the Capivara Mountains, in Pará, where there are cave paintings that are relics from thousands of years ago.

As for the Northeast, made up of the states of Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, it is the beaches, where the sun shines all year round, and the sea, including the Fernando de Noronha archipelago – where diving is a special attraction, that speak the loudest. The Northeast is where some of the oldest cities in Brazil are to be found, such as Salvador, in Bahia, which was founded by Portuguese colonizers in 1549 and was the first Brazilian seat of government; Olinda, in Pernambuco, where the government of the Dutchman Maurício de Nassau left strong cultural remains behind; Fortaleza, in Ceará, where the sailing rafts that cross the sea are one of the city’s distinguishing features; and São Luís, in Maranhão, with its strong influences left by the Portuguese, especially in its architecture, where the tilework on many of the listed buildings is worth highlighting.

The other regions are home to countless items of historical importance, parks, mountain ranges, and plateaus, which show that Brazil really does have a lot to offer.

With its size and its wealth of natural resources, Brazil has one of the largest biodiversities on the planet. Its varied climate and landscapes provide countless alternatives for participatory tourism, where travelers are explorers, rather than passively contemplate their environment, and can make trips which can combine leisure, sport, adventure, culture, study and work, involving a wide range of interests and activities, such as incentive tours, walks, cruises, mountaineering, observing flora and fauna, photography, sport fishing and studies in the anthropology area.

Financial System
The Brazilian financial system consists, at present, of a group of very solid, highly capitalized banking institutions that are capable of quickly and efficiently taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the market. On the other hand, their macroeconomic efficiency leaves something to be desired, not as much because of the institutional incapacity but more because of effects that persistently oppose growth. Thus, it is perfectly possible, and even quite plausible, that an improvement in the macroeconomic environment, which generates incentives and increases credit supply, together with the adoption of policies which stimulate competition between banks to not only create new products but also to lower the cost of consumer credit, would enable the sector to make a decisive contribution to the development of the country.

Population and general data about the country
According to estimates made in 1990, the Brazilian population is 54% white, 39% mixed race, 6% black, 0.8% Asian and 0.2% indigenous Americans. This population was originally sourced from the indigenous people, Portuguese and blacks, which were later added to by waves of Italian, Spanish, German, Slav and Japanese immigrants.

Population characteristics
The population of Brazil (according to 1996 estimates) is 157,070,163 inhabitants. The average population density is 18.38 hab/km2. Approximately 75% of the Brazilian population lives in the towns and cities.

Territorial divisions
The republic is made up of 26 states and a federal district. The states are Acre, Alagoas, Amapá, Amazonas, Bahia, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Pará, Paraíba, Paraná, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio Grande do Sul, Rondônia, Roraima, Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Sergipe and Tocantins. The Federal District includes Brasília, which substituted Rio de Janeiro as the country’s capital in 1960.