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It is the fifth largest country by geographical area,
the fifth most populous country,
the fourth most populous democracy in the world.
Its population comprises the majority of the world's Portuguese speakers.
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Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of over 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi).
It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana and the overseas department of French Guiana; on the northwest by Colombia; on the west by Bolivia and Peru; on the southwest by Argentina and Paraguay and on the south by Uruguay. Numerous archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean are part of the Brazilian territory, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz
Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until its independence in 1822.Initially independent as the Empire of Brazil, the country has been a republic since 1889. The bicameral legislature (now called Congress) dates back to 1824, when the first constitution was ratified.The Constitution defines Brazil as a Federal Republicformed by the union of 26 States, the Federal District and the Municipalities (nowadays more than 5,564).
Brazil is the world's tenth largest economy at market exchange rates and the ninth largest in purchasing power.Economic reforms have given the country new international projection.It is a founding member of the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations, and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.
It is a member of the G20. The Brazilian population is predominantly Roman Catholic, almost all Portuguese-speaking and multiethnic.Brazil is also home to a diversity of wildlife, natural environments, and extensive natural resources in a variety of protected habitats.Brazil is the first most biodiverse country
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Most native tribes who live and lived within Brazil's current borders are thought to descend from the first wave of migrants from North Asia (Siberia) that crossed the Bering Land Bridge at the end of the last Ice Age around 9000 BC. In 1500 AD, the territory of modern Brazil had an estimated total population of nearly 3 million Amerindians divided in 2,000 nations and tribes.
A not-updated linguistic survey found 188 living indigenous languages with 155,000 total speakers. In 2007, Fundação Nacional do Índio (English: National Indian Foundation) reported the presence of 67 different tribes yet living without contact with civilization, up from 40 in 2005. With this figure, now Brazil has the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the World, even more than the island of New Guinea.
When the Portuguese arrived in 1500, the Amerindians were mostly semi-nomadic tribes, with the largest population living on the coast and along the banks of major rivers. Unlike Christopher Columbus who thought he had reached the India, the Portuguese Vasco da Gama had already reached India sailing around Africa two years before they reached Brazil.
Nevertheless, the word índios ("Indians") was by then established to designate the peoples of the New World and stuck being used today in the Portuguese language, while the people of India are called indianos. Initially, the Europeans saw the natives as noble savages, and miscegenation of the population began right away. Tribal warfare and cannibalism convinced the Portuguese that they should "civilize" the Amerindians.
Brazil does not have a category for multiracial people, but a Pardo (brown) one, which may include people of mixed European, African and Amerindian ancestry. According to the 2006 census, the Pardos make up 42.6% or 79.782 million people of Brazil's population.
According to some DNA resources, most Brazilians possess some degree of a mixed-race ancestry, though less than half of the country's population classified themselves as Pardo (which means brown and is understood by some as mixed-race) in the censusBefore the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, Brazil was inhabited by nearly five million Amerindians.
[he European immigration to Brazil started in the sixteenth century, with the vast majority of them coming from Portugal. In the first two centuries of colonization, 100,000 Portuguese arrived in Brazil (around 500 colonists per year). In the eighteenth century, 600,000 Portuguese arrived (6,000 per year).Another important ethnic group, Africans, broght as slaves, started arriving in 1550. Many came from Guinea, or from West African countries - by the end of the eighteenth century many had been taken from Congo, Angola and Mozambique (or, in Bahia, from Nigeria).
By the time of the end of the slave trade in 1850, around 3.5 million slaves had been brought to Brazil–37% of all slave traffic between Africa and the Americas.]he largest influx of European immigrants to Brazil occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
According to the Memorial do Imigrante statistics data, Brazil attracted nearly 5 million immigrants between 1870 and 1953. Most of the immigrants were Italians and Portuguese, but also significant numbers of Germans, Spaniards, Japanese and Syrian-Lebanese.
The Portuguese settlers were the ones to start the intensive race-mixing process in Brazil. The miscegenation in Brazil, according to many Historians, was not a pacific process as some used to believe: it was a domination form found from the Portuguese against the Native Brazilian and African populations.
The White Portuguese population in Brazil never outnumbered the non-White one. The numbers of Indigenous peoples and African slaves were much higher during Colonial Brazil. However, in the 19th century, there were more Brazilians of mixed Portuguese descent than those of pure African or Indian descent.
According to some Historians, Portuguese settlers in Brazil used to prefer to marry Portuguese-born females. If not possible, the second option were Brazilian-born females of recent Portuguese background. The third option were Brazilian-born women of distant Lusitanic ancestry. However, the number of White females in Brazil was very low during the Colonial period, causing a large number of interracial relationships in the country.
White/Black relationships in Brazil started as early as the first Africans were brought as slaves in 1550. The Mulattoes (people of White/Black ancestry) were also enslaved, though some children of rich aristocrats and owners of gold mines were educated and became important people in Colonial Brazil. Probably, the most famous case was Chica da Silva, a mixed-race Brazilian slave who married a rich gold mine owner and became one of the richest persons in Brazil.
Demographics of Brazil from 1835 to 1872 |
Year |
white |
brown |
black |
1835 |
24.4% |
18.2% |
51.4% |
1872 |
38.1% |
42.2% |
19.7% |
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Other mulattoes largely contributed to Brazil's culture: Aleijadinho (sculptor and architect), Machado de Assis (writer), Lima Barreto (writer), Chiquinha Gonzaga (composer), etc.
In 1835, Blacks made up the majority of Brazil's population. In 1872, their numbers was largely decreased, outnumbered by Mulattoes and Whites.
According to genetic studies, 86% of Brazilians have, at least, 10% of Black African genes.
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