Brazil

6 Pages 1501 Words

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world and is also the largest country in South America. It occupies almost half of the South American continent and extends from north of the equator to south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Its capital is Brasilia. Brazil’s large size and diverse population provide great variety in the natural environment, population, culture, and economy.
The name of Brazil comes from a very heavy hard dyewood pau brasil or brazilwood. The first inhabitants of Brazil were Native Americans. The Portuguese settled in Brazil in 1500 when many Native American tribes sparsely populated the country. In the mid-16th century the Portuguese began to import African slaves to work on agricultural production. The economic development of Brazil has been strongly influenced by a series of economic cycles in which different resources were exploited in different parts of the country. The first commodity to be exploited was the brazilwood then other resources were exploited over the years. Brazil was a Portuguese colony from 1500 to 1822, when it achieved independence. The abolition of slavery took place in 1888. Since the 1940s Brazilian society has undergone dramatic changes to boost industrialization and to diversify the economy. Until the 1960s the majority of the people lived in rural areas rather than in cities or towns, but the situation is now reversed.
Two geographic features dominate the landscape of Brazil: the vast Amazon Basin, which spans the width of northern Brazil, and an extensive highland plateau, known as the Brazilian Highlands, which covers most of the South and Southeast. The Amazon Basin consists of a huge drainage area that contains the world’s largest river, the Amazon River, and the world’s largest tropical rain forest. In the South and Southeast, the Brazilian Highlands—an eroded plateau dotted with irregular mountains and crossed by river valleys—forms the major fe...