Brazil is a country with huge territory.
It has the fifth largest territory in the world after Russia, Canada, USA and China.
It occupies an area of approximately 8 547 400 sq.km.
This is approximately ½ of the mainland of South America.
It bordered by almost all countries of the continent with the exception of Chile and Ecuador, which makes a total number of ten countries.
To the north is bordered by French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela and Colombia.
To the west – with Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay.
In the south, the country bordered by Argentina and Uruguay.
In the northeast, east and southeast, has an outlet on the Atlantic Ocean.
Approximately ½ of the state boundaries are oceanic.
In America this is the eastern-most country.
Brazil is a pear-shaped – wider in the north and more narrow to the south.
It occupies the heart of the continent.
Best Places to Visit in Brazil
Some of the largest cities of Brazil are Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Fortaleza, Manaus, Recife, the capital of Brazil and so on.
The largest is undoubtedly Sao Paulo.
With its population of 17 900 000, it is the fourth largest in the world.
It is also the most important economic center of the country.
It posses a rugged beauty, like other major cities such as New York for example.
The most beautiful is undoubtedly Rio de Janeiro. Once it was the capital of Brazil.
Its name means in translation January River.
January – because the place has seen for the first time in January, and river – because the initial impression of the sea-farers was that they are stuck in the mouth of a great river, since the Guanabara Bay here is very strong cut into the land.
Manaus is located in the heart of Amazonia and it is surrounded by dense equatorial forests.
The beaches of Recife amazing. They are protected from the large ocean waves by amazing coral reefs.
On the coast of the town you can see thousands of high and lazy swaying coconut palms, that give the sense of exotics to this beautiful Brazilian city.
The capital of the country – Brazil – has a population of 2 400 000 people and it is a relatively new city.
Initially, the country’s capital was Rio de Janeiro, but the population was strongly concentrated in the coastal zone.
The shifting of the capital into the inland of the country is aiming to achieve greater uniformity in the distribution of the population.
Weather
Brazil’s climate is generally warm and humid, but because of its huge territory, the country gets into the borders of four climate zones – equatorial, subequatorial, tropical and subtropical.
Equatorial Climate
The equatorial climate zone covers the entire Amazon rainforest.
It is hot and humid throughout the year. The temperatures are constant.
Manaus is located in the heart of the equatorial climate zone.
The daytime temperatures range from 30 to 33°C throughout the year, and the second semester is a little bit warmer.
The night temperatures are constant – 24°C all year round.
The rainfall throughout the year are extremely plentiful and range from 40 to 260 millimeters.
The rainiest months last from January to March, and the driest are July, August and September.
Because of the hot and humid climate, this climate zone has created the perfect conditions for the development of the largest rain forest on the planet.
There always is raining over some part of the Amazon rainforest and the rain is never stopped everywhere.
Subequatorial Climate
The subequatorial climatic zone covers mainly the Brazilian plateau.
The climate is also hot and humid, but more pronounced seasonality of the precipitation and slightly larger temperature amplitudes.
In the capital, Brazil for example, the daily temperatures are between 31 and 34°C throughout the year, ie slightly higher than the temperatures in the equatorial region.
The night-time temperatures, however, are relatively low and moving between 13 and 17°C.
Of course, the bigger altitude in this area slightly reduce the temperatures into the Brazilian capital.
Otherwise, in the sites with smaller altitude there is no difference with the night-time temperatures at the equator.
There’s dry season. It lasts from May to August.
Usually, the driest month is July. In this month traditionally there is no any rain.
However, in January, when in the southern hemisphere the summer is at its height, may fall to 350 millimeters of rain!
In this climate zone are widely spread dry-loving forests of type “savannah”.
In these areas the density of trees is less than in the jungle.
In the subequatorial zone often can be seen open grasslands that are very similar to these in Africa.
Tropical Climate
The tropical climate zone is located in the southern and southeastern part of the country.
In the north includes a huge part of the coast, covering the city of Recife.
This climate zone is the most populated part of Brazil.
This is where are located the biggest Brazilian cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
The tropical climate here is characterized by heavy rainfall and high temperatures throughout the year.
The daily temperatures range from 24°C in July to 29°C in February.
Quite often, however, are much higher, and sometimes exceed 40°C.
The high temperatures in combination with the high humidity, typical for the tropics make the noon hours of Rio de Janeiro suitable only for rest under the shade of the palm trees, near the ocean coast.
Subtropical Climate
Subtropical climate zone covers the most southern parts of the country, south of the 30th parallel.
Within the borders of this climate zone gets the large Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.
Here the weather is hot in the summer and warm in the winter.
The temperatures are similar to those in Southern California and the island of Cyprus.
The coldest months here are June and July, when the temperatures are around 18 – 20°C.
However, the nights are cool – then the thermometers rarely show more than 9 – 10°C.
One typical characteristic of the subtropical climate is the increasing of the rainfall during the months of April to September, when the precipitation vary from 100 to 135 millimeters per month.
Although the winter is quite mild, however, had experienced the temperatures to fall even below zero, even though this is a record and has happened very rarely.
Similar cases were registered during the months of May, June, July and August.
Safety in Brazil
In its social and economic development, Brazil meeting several key problems.
The first of these is the poverty.
Brazil has always been a country of great contrasts.
Rio de Janeiro is the most prominent example.
Here a few meters away of the unspeakable luxury of the expensive hotels, restaurants, villas with swimming pools and apartments for millions, you can see the misery of the of Favelas, where the living conditions are terrible.
500 meters from Ipanema beach and 250 meters from Copacabana beach is one of those Favela – Pavao Pavaozinho.
The poverty, which develops the Favela is the basis of the high crime and other social problems.
Another problem in Brazil is quite different and it is connected by the nature, but in this respect the country is coping quite well.
It is connected with the strong concentration of population in some parts of the country, particularly on the south-east coast.
The two largest cities in Brazil – Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro – are situated at less than three hundred kilometers from each other.
And this is only part of the cluster population.
Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Curitaba and so on, are also cities with a million people and they are situated also in the southeastern part of the country.
On the other hand Brazil has vast boundless territories, where hundreds of miles there are no settlements.
In order to tackle this problem, the capital of Brazil was moved in the central parts of the country and thus effectively managed the concentration of the population.
Today millions of people are attracted in the central parts of Brazil, because of the capital and other large cities. Another example is Manaus, which is strongly isolated.
Hundreds of miles from it there is no another big city, but only small villages.
This is because it is located in the heart of Amazonia.
However, this city of many millions today is the only very important and attractive economic center into the heart of the biggest equatorial rainforest on the planet.
Nature
The nature of Brazil is amazing.
It is considered that on the territory of the country live approximately 1 / 3 of the known animal and plant species.
Amazon, which occupies the northern parts of the country is the largest of its kind plain in the world. Through it runs the most high water river on the planet – the Amazon.
In its annual spills, the river floods huge area of this valley, and thus it create unique of its kind wild life.
These flooded rain forests are called by the Brazilians “Selvas”.
This is the realm of multilevel vegetation.
The different floors of the jungle are inhabit by different animal species.
Here you can find such species as the jaguar, sloth, kapibara, Piranha, the only of its kind river dolphin, hundreds species of monkeys, snakes, frogs, lizards, birds, insects and so forth.
In its southern part, the Amazon jungle gradually changes into a forest of type “savannah”.
It occupies mainly the territory of the Brazilian plateau.
The intertwined equatorial forests retreated to much more open spaces.
The southern and southeastern parts of the country occupied by tropical rain forests.
They cover mainly the coastal areas around and south of Recife, reaching almost to Porto Alegre in the state Rio Grande do Sul.
Part of this rain forest is also located in the downtown of Rio de Janeiro.
This is Tijuca Park, which is among the largest urban parks on the planet.
The interesting is that here you can touch one so wild and unspoiled nature in the center of one cosmopolitan metropolis as Rio de Janeiro.
In the southern part, Brazil is also covered with forests, but not equatorial or tropical or subequatorial type.
Here are widely spread many moisture-loving subtropical plant species.
Although subtropical, this area differs significantly from the forest that are spread around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, as the drought that is so typical for Southern Europe and Northern Africa is unknown in this part of Brazil.
Relief
For Brazil are typical the large relief forms.
The Amazon rain forest for example, covers approximately half of the Brazilian territory.
It surround the Amazon River, which is the most high water river in the world.
The slope of the Amazon is very weak towards the Atlantic.
Suffice it to mention that in the western part of Brazil near the border with Colombia the altitude of some areas is less than 100 meters!
And this is more than 2000 kilometers of river delta.
Overall in the Amazon rain forest are rare places with an altitude above 200 meters.
The small tilt of the largest South American lowlands is the reason for the frequent spills along the Amazon River during the rainy seasons.
The other half of the country was occupied by the vast Brazilian plateau, where the prevailing altitude is between 300 and 900 meters.
This plateau reaches almost to the Atlantic Ocean and here is situated the largest city of Brazil – Sao Paulo.
Overall, the country has no high mountains.
The highest peak in Brazil is Pico da Neblina, which rises to a height of 3014 meters in the northern parts of Brazil, on the border with Venezuela, in the state of Amazonas.
Population
Brazil has a population of almost 190 000 000 people.
It is the fifth most populated in the world after China, India, USA and Indonesia.
The official language is Portuguese. This is the largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world.
Brazil and Haiti are the only countries in Latin America whose official language is the Portuguese.
Brazil, however, is very modern and advanced country and in the major cities will hardly to encounter a hotel, shop, restaurant or other place that the staff does not speaks English.
Like other countries in the “New World”, such as the United States and Mexico for example, Brazil is also composed of States.
They are 27 – Acre, Alagoas, Amapa, Amazonas, Bahia, Brasilia (Distrito Federal), Caera, Espirito Santo, Goias, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Maranhaio, Minas Gerais, Para, Parana, Paraiba, Pernambuco, Piaui, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio Grande so Sul, Rondonia, Roraima, Santa Catarina, Sao Paulo, Sergipe, Tocantins. 17 of them are bordered by the Atlantic Ocean.
Economy
Brazil is among the twenty most developed countries in the world and most developed in South America.
In the recent years the country has made impressive economic growth.
Brazil accounting for 1 / 3 of world production and export of coffee.
It is first at the production of bananas, but they are mainly used for domestic consumption and therefore the leadership belongs to two other countries – Ecuador and the Philippines.
Brazil export large quantity of exotic tropical fruits such as cassava, papaya and so forth.
It also grows cacao, corn and other cereals.
Brazil is a large producer of meat and dairy products.
The country has highly developed industry.
Very important is the production of world famous brands of cars.
One very important indicator to the economy of each country is the electricity.
In this respect Brazil is also one of the world leaders.
It is a fact that 90% of the extracted energy comes from hydroelectric power plants.
The advantage to this type of power is that although large areas are flooded with water, still the energy is clean and do not pollute the environment.
Brazil is very rich in minerals.
There are huge reserves of oil, gold, bauxite, diamonds and others.
Positively affect to the Brazilian economy is consists mainly of young people – 1 / 3 of the population is under the age of 18 years.