Best vacations in Brazil

If you are planning to vacation in Brazil you are in for a treat; it is an awe-inspiring country with lots to do and see.  The first thing that you want to do is a little research on where to go.  If you like to go to the beach, then consider a place like Rio [...]

If you are planning to take a tour of Brazil, there are many options for you to take.  The country is enormous, both in its physical size but also in the diversity of attractions that you can find there.
Many people who are going to Brazil are doing so because of the tropical climate and the [...]

So much of what makes Brazil unique is that the origins of so many things there come from the ethnic diversity that the country enjoys.  Many of us have seen the images and clips of people performing the Samba, particularly when we have glimpses of Carnival, but not many people are aware of the origins [...]

While many of us know Brazil as one of the premier vacation destinations in the world because of its beautiful beaches and sunny resorts, you may not realize how culturally diverse or just how large the country is.  In terms of the population size, you might be surprised to find out that Brazil is the [...]

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, both in terms of its population and of its land mass.  There is a wealth of information out there about the country and its people if you know where to look for it.
The first place to start is the internet.  Not only does the internet have [...]

The official currency of Brazil is the real, and its symbol is R$.  The pluralized form of the real is reais.  It is further subdivided into centavos.  One hundred centavos are equivalent to one real.  The value of the real is currently sitting at about 42 cents USD.  The Brazilian government has continually attempted to [...]

Most of us know about the rainforests in Brazil and about the incredible Amazon River, but not many people are aware of the number of great cities that are found in Brazil.  In total there are fourteen cities in Brazil that have a population greater than one million, and they all have something to offer [...]

Brazil is a beautiful and vast country and has a lot to offer someone who is looking for a dream vacation.  One of the things that Brazil is best known for is its white sandy beaches.  Places like Ipanema and Copacabana have been immortalized in songs and in movies and for good reason.  Brazil has [...]

The city of Curitiba is the capital city of the Brazilian state of Parana.  Curitiba has both the largest population and the largest economy in Southern Brazil.   Its population is almost two million people, also making it the seventh largest city nationwide.  Curitiba’s gross domestic product surpassed seventeen billion dollars, also ranking it fourth in [...]

The city of Manaus is the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas.  It is located in between the rivers of Negro and Solimoes and is the most populous city in Amazonas, according to statistics from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.  Manaus is also a very popular ecotourism destination.  Manaus is situated in [...]

Recife is the fourth largest metropolitan area in Brazil and the capital of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.  In 2007, Recife’s population was over one and a half million.  This municipality is located where the Beberibe River meets the Capibaribe River and both flow into the Atlantic ocean.  It is also a major port on [...]

Brazil’s economy is the ninth largest in the world and the largest in Latin America.  The vast country has great amounts of cultural, ecological, and social diversity, and has many extremes from one region to another.  While modern industry and commerce have flourished in Brazil, there is also a tremendous amount of inequality and it [...]

Brazil has come a long way through out its chaotic history, from being a colony, to gaining its independence, to being a democracy, to having an authoritarian military regime, to having a democracy today.  Despite this great progress, Brazil still has many problems with crime through out the country.  The major Brazilian crimes include drug [...]

Brazil’s economy is a moderate free market and is export oriented.  When measured nominally, its gross domestic product is more than one trillion dollars, which ranks tenth in the whole world and second in the Americas.  When Brazil’s purchasing power parity is measured it is almost two trillion dollars, which makes it the eighth largest [...]

The health of Brazil’s general population is affected by many factors.  These factors include climate, pollution, and health care.  There are also many international health organizations in the country, including the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information and the Edumed Institute for Education in Medicine and Health.
The Brazilian government has done various [...]

The territory defined as modern Brail is immensely vast, so the history of the Brazilian history encompasses centuries of armed actions through out this territory, as well as the role the Brazilian Armed Forces has played in conflicts worldwide and peacekeeping.  Before it even became known as Brazil, the territory was the site of many [...]

Today, the Brazilian Armed Forces of the Forcas Armadas Brasileiras is made up of the Brazilian Army, the Brazilian Air Force, and the Brazilian Navy which includes the Brazilian Marine Corps and the Brazilian Naval Aviation.  The State’s Military Police is described as an ancillary force of the army, and all the different military branches [...]

Although it is not always the first aspect of Brazil thought of, the country has certainly made a name for itself in the arena of international science and technology.
In the first decades of the nineteenth century, Brazilian science effectively came into being.  The Portuguese royal family came to Brazil in 1808 to escape the threat [...]

The earliest Brazilian sculpture has been traced back to the lat sixteenth century, shortly after the Portuguese established their first colonies in the newly discovered territory.  Through out the century that followed, most of the sculpture in Brazil had been brought over from Brazil, and they mostly displayed strong Baroque features.  This Baroque style flourished [...]

In the late sixteenth century, Brazilian painting in the true sense of the term began to emerge.  Brazilian painting was largely influenced by the Baroque style that was imported from Portugal.  This was the dominant school of painting in Brazil until the beginning of the nineteenth century, and it flourished through out all of the [...]

Brazil is an immense country, spanning nearly half of the continent of South America.  Its vast territory is currently divided into five regions that are also called macroregions.  These divisions were made by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE) or the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, in English.
These divisions enclose regions that [...]

The term Brazilian refers to all those born in Brazil, as well as foreigners who are born abroad but from a Brazilian parent, or a foreigner living in Brazil who has applied for Brazilian citizenship.  The majority of Brazilians actually live in Brazil, but there are significant Brazilian populations in countries like the United States, [...]

Brazil is an extremely large country with a very diverse population.  Many different ethnicities, religions, and cultures are represented in the population.  Likewise, many different languages are spoken.  While Portuguese is the country’s official and dominant language, indigenous, European, and Asian languages are also spoken.
Virtually all of the Brazilian population speaks Portuguese, if only out [...]

Brazil is an immense country that covers a very vast territory.  The climates and culture vary greatly among different parts of the country, and there are many fascinating cities across the country.
Almost eight out of ten Brazilians live in a city, which is a fairly high reported rate of urbanization.  However, it should be taken [...]

Brazil is a vast country that has an extremely diverse culture, which is represented in many of the country’s different cultural aspects.  In Brazil’s earliest history, not much was done in terms of artistic expression because Brazil was a colony of Brazil, and the Portuguese civilization established in the colony was very limited in the [...]

Brazil is home to a wide variety of plants and animals, due to its diverse climates and geographic regions.  However, from early colonial times, conservation of the environment has been an important and severe issue.  The Portuguese settlers who came to Brazil in the early sixteenth century heavily harvested the Brazilwood tree that was used [...]

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 [...]

Brazil is known for its very diverse and interesting culture.  One manifestation of this culture is the Carnival that Brazil is famous for.  While Carnival is a celebration that can be found around the world, Brazilian Carnival certainly has its own, unique flavor.  The correct spelling of Brazilian Carnival is Carnaval, and it is the [...]

Brazil is a vast and fascinating country, which occupies about half of the continent of South America.  It borders the Atlantic Ocean and has an area of over eight and a half million square kilometers.  The highest point in Brazil, Pico da Neblina, reaches ninety-eight hundred feet into the air.  Brazil is also bordered by [...]

One place that Brazil’s extremely diverse culture is manifested is the wide variety of cuisine styles available in the country.  The styles of cuisine vary greatly by region, as does Brazil itself.  The styles of cuisine reflect the mix of Portuguese, Amerindian, African, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Syrian, Lebanese, German, and Japanese influences.  The different influences [...]

Brazil’s culture and history show the many different cultural influences that have acted upon the country since its birth.  Brazil’s flag is a green field with a large yellow rhombus at its center, with its points pointing to the center of side of the field.  Inside the rhombus is a deep blue circle, where white [...]

The Brazilian culture is one of the most diversified cultures in the world.  This is due partially to the fact that Brazil encompasses such a monstrous area of land.  The cities found in the various regions of Brazil are diverse in their climate and geographic conditions, and also in their cultures.  Another contributing factor to [...]

Brazil is known for its massive and colorful annual Carnival that falls four days before Ash Wednesday each year.  Brazil’s Carnival has often been called the largest in the world.  However, it should be noted that Carnival varies greatly from region to region in Brazil.  There are four major styles of Carnival through out Brazil.
The [...]

Brazil is an immense country with a great number of industries that contribute to its economy, one growing sector of which is tourism.  Tourism is actually a key part of the economy in several regions of the country.  In 2008, the country had had 5.2 million visitors, and in 2007 it was ranked the fourth [...]

The population of Brazil is extremely diverse, due to the vast expanse of territory the country covers, and the many different ethnic and cultural groups it encompasses.  One excellent venue for examining this cultural diversity is the music of Brazil.  Through out the past five hundred years, the history of Brazilian music has developed many [...]

Brazilian literature is wide category that generally incorporates all literature written in the Portuguese language either by Brazilians or in Brazil.  This category also includes literature of this sort that was written before Brazil declared independence from Portugal in 1822.  Through out the twentieth century, Brazilian literature has made a definite shift, and the use [...]

Film was introduced to Brazil at the turn of the century, but it took some time before it established itself as a popular form of entertainment in the country.  The industry has had numerous ups and downs, which is largely due to the fact that the industry is dependent upon the government for funds and [...]

Brazil is an immense country that has evolved a great deal since the time of its origin.  Educating such a large population is a difficult task, but Brazil has created a public system that covers all levels of education quite well.
Brazilian education is regulated through the Federal Government, by the Ministry of Education.  This ministry [...]

Brazil is a massive country that covers a vast and diverse expanse of land.  Thus, its population is equally diverse and encompasses many different cultural and ethnic groups.  Generally, most Brazilians trace their origins to four main sources of migration: the Amerindians, the Europeans, the Africans, and the Asians.  Since 1872, Brazil has conducted periodical [...]

Many sports are widely played in Brazil, and the general population is very involved in athletics.  Football is the most popular by a wide margin, but other sports are also quite popular and some even have cultural significance.
Brazil has been a competitor in the Summer Olympics since 1920, and is currently ranked thirty-third in the [...]

Brazil’s climate varies considerably around the country because it spans such a wide area.  While the North is mostly tropical due to the equator traversing the mouth of the Amazon, below the Tropic of Capricorn, the climate is much more temperate.  In all, there are six climatic regions in Brazil, tropical, semiarid, equatorial, highland tropical, [...]

Brazil spans an extremely vast amount of land, and so also encompasses many different ecoregions and several different kinds of biomes.  This wide variety of habitats in Brazil, including the jungles of the Amazon Rainforest and the Atlantic Forest, the tropical savanna of the Cerrado, the xeric shrub land of the Caatinga, and the wetland [...]

Over eight thousand years ago, the first indigenous peoples arrived in Brazil by crossing the Bering land bridge into Alaska, then spreading the rest of North, Central, and South America.
The first European to discover Brazil was the Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral who landed on April 22, 1500.  From the sixteenth to nineteenth century, Brazil [...]

In the last census of Brazil which took place in 2000, over seventy percent of the Brazilian population declared themselves Roman Catholic.  However, Brazilian religions are very diverse, and in many cases a fusion of different beliefs has taken place.  Brazil is a very religious nation, with over ninety percent of the population declaring some [...]

Brazil has had an incredibly tumultuous past four decades.  Its history has always been full of conflict, from its original discovery, to its colonization by Portugal, its declaration of independence, its short lived Empire, and its many leaders, elected officials and dictators alike.
The Brazilian military’s first task has always been to defend the Brazilian state.  [...]

Brazil is the nation officially referred to as the Federative Republic of Brazil and is located in the continent of South America.  In terms of geographical area, it is the fifth largest country, and it occupies nearly half of South America.  It is also the fifth most populous country and fourth most populous democratic country [...]

Brazil has evolved quite a bit since it was originally discovered by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral on April 22, 1500.  From its initial discovery, it became a colony of Portugal and remained under official Portuguese rule from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.  The events in Brazilian history following its colonization include the short [...]

Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the territory now called Brazil in 1500, the land was occupied by many groups of indigenous people who had been there for centuries.  They most likely reached Brazil by crossing the Bering Strait on foot from Asia, and migrating down through the Americas, or by sea routes along [...]

In 1494, a papal bull and the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the New World between Spain and Portugal.  In 1500, Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral landed in what is now called Brazil and laid claim to it for the king of Portugal, Manuel I.  Brazil became valuable to the Portuguese for its rainforests rich in [...]

When the Portuguese court fled Portugal in 1808 to avoid the Napoleonic wars, they made Brazil the seat of the massive Portuguese Empire.  However, in 1820, the Liberal Revolution erupted in Porto, which led the Royal family to return to safety in Portugal in 1821.  Only a portion of Brazilian delegates were left behind to [...]