Concept in Definition ABC

The Republic Federativa de Brasil is the fifth largest country in the world (its surface area of ​​8.5 million square kilometers is equivalent to seventeen times the size of Spain). Only two nations in South America, Chile and Ecuador, do not have borders with Brazil.

His story as nation started thousands of kilometers away in the Spanish town of Tordesillas

This immense territory It was discovered in 1500 by Portuguese navigators and was initially known as "Land of the Holy Cross". Six years earlier the representatives of the Catholic Monarchs and Juan ll of Portugal met in the Valladolid municipality of Tordesillas to agree on the division of the New World: with a demarcation line from pole to pole of the terrestrial hemisphere, the eastern end of South America became the colonial territory of Portugal and the rest of continent it became part of the Hispanic monarchy.

A country of records

The soccer team has won the world championship five times (Germany and Italy are in second place with four championships). The Maracana stadium was the largest in the world until 1989 (the first is located in Pyongyang city, the capital of North Korea). Pelé was the only player in history to win the World Cup three times.

The Amazon River is the longest river in the world (6,800 km, compared to 6,650 km for the Nile) and it is also the largest. On the other hand, Brazil is the country with the most reserves of Water on the planet and with the longest beach in the world (Praia do Cassino stretches for 7500 kilometers).

In Latin America, the Carioca nation is the one with the greatest diversity of indigenous peoples (in Colombia there are 83 different native peoples, in Mexico 67 and in Brazil 241)

It is estimated that in the Amazon rainforest there are about 15 tribes that have never had contact with other humans.

Rio de Janeiro's carnival is the most famous on the planet (six million participated in the 2018 edition people, 13 sambas schools made up of about three thousand people and the influx of tourists generated some income over a billion dollars).

The figures of violence They are equally striking (in 2017 there was an average of 175 homicides a day). In this sense, it is one of the ten nations with the highest rate of criminality of the world.

The Rocinha and Fazenda Coqueiro favelas in Rio de Janeiro are the largest (in Rio de Janeiro there are more than 700 irregular urban settlements).

It is the country with the highest biodiversity of the planet (in the list of megadiverse nations it is also in the first position).

Fotolia photos: Naum / Aleksandr Volkov / Robert Herhold