States of Brazil
The country known as Brazil, or officially, the Federative Republic of Brazil is a union divided into twenty-six different states, and ones district. The district is called the Federal District and it contains the capital city of Brasilia.
The states’ borders are generally based on conventional historical borders. These borders have developed naturally through out the centuries, although a few of the states’ boundaries are more arbitrary. The Federal District, while not a state, has some of the properties of a state, and some of the properties of a municipality.
The states of Brazil are Acre, Alagoas, Amapa, Amazonas, Bahia, Ceara, the Federal District, Espirito Santo, Goias, Maranhao, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mina Gerais, Para, Paraiba, Parana, Pernambuco, Piaui, Rio de Janiero, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio Grande do Sul, Rondonia, Roraima, Santa Catarina, Sao Paulo, Sergipe, and Tocantins.
The largest state in area is Amazonas and the smallest is the Federal District. Roraima has the smallest human population and Sao Paulo has the largest. Maranhao has the lowest GDP per capital at two thousand, seven hundred American dollars, and the Federal District has the highest GDP per capita at nineteen thousand American dollars. Rio Grande do Sul has the lowest infant mortality rate at 15.4 percent and Alagoas has the highest infant mortality rate at 57.7 percent. The lowest life expectancy is 66 in Alagoas and the highest life expectancy rate is 75 in the Federal District.
The division of Brazil into these states is largely historical. When Brazil entered the Second World War in 1943, the Vargas regime detached seven territories from the border of the country in a strategic move to be able to administer over them directly. These seven territories were Amapa, Rio Branco, Acre, Guapore, Ponta Pora, Iguacu, and the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha. When the war ended, Amapa, Rio Branco, and Acre were retained as states. Two other territories, Rio Branco and Guapore, were renamed Roraima and Rondonia, respectively. Ponta Pora and Iguacu returned to their original territorial status. The final territory, Pernambuco became part of the state of Fernando de Noronha in 1988.
The Federal District didn’t come into being until 1960, when a square shaped territory was carved out of Goias in order to prepare an area for the new capital of Brazil, Brasilia. What had previously been the federal district became the state of Guanabara, and in 1975 it was merged with the state of Rio de Janeiro. It retained its name and the municipality of Rio de Janeiro remained its capital.
Later, in 1977, Mato Grosso was split into two states with the northern area retaining the name Mato Grosso and the southern area adopting the name Mato Grosso do Sul. Mato Grosso do Sul selected Camp Grande as its capital. This new state incorporated the territories of Ponta Pora and Northern Iguacu. Central Iguacu was incorporated by Parana and Southern Iguacu was adopted by Santa Catarina. Finally, in 1988, the northern part of Goias became the state of Tocantins and selected the city of Palmas as its capital.