Brazil

Brazil is a republic of the South American continent, a major industrial country, producing aircraft, armaments, automobiles, nuclear power, and steel as well as many consumer commodities. In addition, Brazil is mineral rich in gold, iron ore, aluminum, bauxite, manganese, mica, and other minerals, including precious stones. Brazilian agrocorporations export bananas, coffee, cotton, oranges, sugar, tea, tobacco, and beef products, among other things.

Having 3,286,426 square miles of territory, Brazil is located between40.5 degrees to 70.5 degrees longitude. The latitude from the equator (traveling north) reaches 10.5 degrees from the equator (traveling south) to 50.25 degrees latitude. The North Atlantic Ocean comprises most of Brazil's northern border, stretching (west to east) from the state of Amapa to the state of Paraiba. Traveling west from Amapa,Brazil's northern border touches French Guiana, Surinam, Guyana,Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru. On the western border (from north to south), Brazil touches Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay. From the southernmost tip of Brazil (the state of Santa Cruz)traveling north to the state of Pernambuco, Brazil is again bordered by the South Atlantic, giving Brazil one of the longest seacoasts (4,600 miles) in the world.

Briefly, the major topographical features include the hot and humid Amazon River Valley lowlands, which occupy a third of Brazil, and La Plata (an elevated tableland), which is semiarid and temperate (woodland and prairie watered by the La Plata River system and its tributaries). In the northeast is a mountainous region, part forest and part desert. Coastal plains are hot and humid, having two seasons: winter (wet) and summer (dry). In general, temperatures decrease in Brazil as one travels from the north to the south of the country. Occasionally in July and August, there is frost and snow in the three southernmost states.

Archaeologists find evidence that the first humans to arrive (in what was later to become Brazil the political entity) came via the Isthmus of Panama. Anomalous data are attributed to Asian and African contacts as well. Some disputed data may indicate human presence in Brazil as long ago as 50,000 years. However, some archaeological sites date from the end of the last glacial age, approximately 10,000 years ago. This early population of Brazil practiced swidden agriculture perhaps 1,000 years before the arrival of Europeans. When the Portuguese first colonized the eastern half of South America, it was inhabited by indigenous tribes, such as Tupinamba-Guarani, Ge, Carib, and Arawak. Certain of these Native cultures practiced hunting, gathering, and horticulture. Others were simple agriculturalists, using slash-and-burn techniques. All of them were seminomadic.

The demographics of Brazil today include the Native American tribes of Brazil, descendants of European immigrants from Portugal (who claimed Brazil in the 1500s as their own), as well as immigrants from the United States of America, Japan, Syria, Lebanon, Greece, Saudi Arabia, the Czech and Slovak republics, Italy, Poland, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain and Africans from the present countries of Tanzania,Mozambique, Malawi, Benin, Nigeria, and Cameroon, among others who were imported by the Europeans to work as slaves on plantations. These three major populations amalgamated to form the unique cultural climate of Brazil. Most of Brazil's [Page 412]178 million citizens live in or near cities, such as Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Recife. The rest of the country is populated sparsely, immense tracts belonging to a few wealthy families and their employees.

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