Brazil, officially theFederative Republic of Brazil, is acountry inSouth America. It is theworld's fifth largest country by area, and the seventh largest by population. The country has about 212 million people. Thecapital of Brazil isBrasília. Brazil was named afterbrazilwood, which is a tree that once grew very well along the Brazilian coast.[7] Brazil has the mostPortuguese speakers in the world and is the only country in theAmericas wherePortuguese is an official language.[8][9]
Pedro Álvares Cabral was the firstEuropean to see Brazil. He saw it in 1500. He was fromPortugal and the Portuguesekingdom claimed Brazil. Soon, Portugalcolonized Brazil and created colonies all along the coastline. They began to importblackslaves fromAfrica and force them to work.[12] Because of the violence of the slave masters, many of these slaves wouldrun away into the forest and create their own communities calledquilombos.
In the late 1500s and early 1600s, the Dutch and the French tried to take some land in Brazil. Dutch, French, and Portuguese started moving inland further than theTreaty of Tordesillas said they could. This caused some fights with the Spaniards (people fromSpain) and indigenous people in the area.[11]
In 1822, Brazil declared independence fromPortugal. Soon there wascivil war. Meanwhile, the quilombos survived and Brazil was bringing in more slaves than any other country in the Americas, even though many countries were beginning to legallyabolish slavery. This led to an increase in slave revolts, especially in the 1860s and 1880s, which forced the government to change the system to keep the country stable.[13] Slavery was legally abolished in 1888.
In 1889, there was a militarycoup, and Pedro II had to leave the country.[11] In 1889, Brazil became arepublic. The only people who could vote were people who owned land. There were some uprisings in the 1920s because some people thought the government was unfairly helping coffee growers. Brazil joined theAllies duringWorld War II.[11]
The official language of Brazil isPortuguese. Brazil is the only country in South America that speaks Portuguese but more people in South America speak Portuguese thanSpanish because the population of Brazil is larger than the combined population of all the Spanish-speaking countries in South America.
Some people in Brazil speakGerman dialects. That came from German immigrants. 2% of Brazilians speak German as theirfirst language.Yiddish is spoken by the elders of theJewish community.
Brazil has the world's largestrainforest, theAmazon Rainforest. It makes up 40% of the country's land area. Brazil also has other types of land, including a type ofsavanna, calledcerrado, and a dry plant region namedcaatinga.
Northeast: Maranhão, Pernambuco, Ceará, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Alagoas, Sergipe, Bahia
Centre-West: Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Distrito Federal/ Federal District
Southeast: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais
South: Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul
The country is the fifth-largest in the world by area. It is known for its manyrainforests andjungles. It is next to every country in South America exceptChile andEcuador.The name Brazil comes from a tree namedbrazilwood.
Brazil is the largest country in South America and the fifth-largest in the world.[23] Its people are called Brazilians or Brasileiros (In Portuguese). The people include citizens of Portuguese or other European descent who mainly live in the South and Southeast, Africans, Native Americans, Arabs, Gypsies, and people of mixed ancestry. Brazil also has the largest Japanese community outsideJapan.[24] Other East Asians follow the Japanese group. The Amazon River flows through Brazil, it is the 2nd longest river in the world (after the Nile). The current President of Brazil is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Two majorsporting events were held in Brazil recently: the2014 FIFA World Cup and the2016 Summer Olympics inRio de Janeiro.
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