Facts About Brazil
Brazil is an important country in the world for many reasons. For one, Brazil has the fifth largest population of any country. It is also the fifth largest country in terms of its physical size. It has a diverse economy, it is important because of its natural resources and culturally it has a lot to offer.
Brazil is home to the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere, Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo has a population of over 20 million people if you were to include the entire metropolitan area. This puts in on par with Mexico City. Sao Paulo is the nineteenth richest city in the world, generating an annual gross domestic product of over $150 billion in USD. That is a difficult number to comprehend, so in comparison the economy of Sao Paulo itself is larger than that of the entire country of Egypt. Its economy is transforming from one that was primarily industrial to one that is more focused on the service and financial sectors. By the year 2020 Sao Paulo is expected to have become the thirteenth largest richest city in the world. Brazil has a number of other immense cities, with fourteen cities that have over one million inhabitants.
Brazil is also vast in terms of its natural dimensions. The Amazon rainforest is immense, and it is the most bio-diverse area in the world. Often referred to as the “lungs of the world,” it has garnered much attention because of its plight and the effects that losing the rainforest would have on the global climate. On top of the fact that the Amazon Rainforest is crucial in reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the loss of it would result in the loss of countless numbers of species of both plants and animals. It is not the only natural wonder of the country, as Brazil also contains the largest wetlands in the world and the largest savanna in the world. The contribution that these areas make to the planet is immeasurable.
The official language of Brazil is Portuguese. Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the years 1500 until 1822. Brazil has been important in the history of Portugal, and the government of Portugal was actually forced to move and operate from Brazil from the years 1808 to 1815. The long-standing history of the two countries is forever intermingled and the effects will last forever. While much of the culture and the language come from Portugal, there are many other cultural influences in Brazil. People from many European countries have settled there, particularly Germany, Italy and Spain. There are many African influences as African slaves were brought to Brazil in large numbers. They are not the only ones to have come; there are also many Asians in Brazil as well as people from the Arab nations. There are still many people in Brazil of Amerindian descent. These people are thought to have come to Brazil from Siberia via the Bering Land Bridge during the last ice age. Despite the fact that Brazil is such a powerful and rich nation, it has more uncontacted people than any other country; that is, people who have not had any contact with outside civilization.