Some Useful Facts...

--is about the size of the continental United States?
--is the 5th largest country in the world? (after the Russian Federation, Canada, China, and the US)?
--takes up about half the land mass of South America and borders on all countries on the continent except Chile and Ecuador?
--has a population of over 172 million (2001) and, like that of the US, is a mixture of peoples originally from the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia?
--is the 2nd largest economy in the Americas (after the US) and the 8th largest in the world?
--suffers habitually from a tremendous socio-economic gap between a relatively small upper class and a large lower class, with a small middle class in-between?
--is a federal republic with 26 states and a capital (Brasília) located in a Federal District?
--is a Portuguese-speaking country!

Brazil's states ("estados" in Portuguese) are conventionally divided into five regions ("regiões"):

--the largest of Brazil's regions, covering over 45% of the country's landmass. It is dominated by the Amazon river basin, the world's largest, which includes ten of the world's largest rivers. The North's population density is only 2.92 persons per square kilometer; yet, about 58% of the region's 7 1/2 million people live in cities.

--a geogaphically diverse region, ranging from tropical vegetation to the semiarid sertão. About 46 million people live here in this region that was the first to be colonized by Europeans, who also brought Africans as slaves. The rich mixture of European, African, and indigenous cultures created what is considered characteristically Brazilian music, folklore, foods, and social habits.

--an extensive region that includes the huge Pantanal marshlands, one of the last major reserves of untouched wildlife on earth. 80% of the region's population (11 million) live in urban areas, including Brasília, the national capital.

--70 million people live here (almost 90% of them in cities) in Brazil's most populous region, which includes the cosmopolitan megalopolis of São Paulo (home to 18 million people!), the extraordinarily beautiful Rio de Janeiro, and the huge agricultural state of Minas Gerais, with its historic gold and diamond towns.

--counting only 7% of Brazil's landmass and a population of about 25 million, the South is in a temperate zone that attracted large numbers of German, Italian, and Polish immigrants, who brought with them distinctive cultures that still mark daily life today. The flourishing economy is a combination of industry and agriculture.