BRASIL

Table of Contents

GEOGRAPHY

Brazil occupies most of the eastern part of the South American continent and its geographic heartland, as well as various islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The only countries in the world that are larger are Russia, Canada, China, and the United States. The national territory extends 4,395 kilometers (2,731 mi) from north to south (5°16’20” N to 33°44’32” S latitude), and 4,319 kilometers (2,684 mi) from east to west (34°47’30” W to 73°59’32” W longitude). It spans four time zones, the westernmost of which is equivalent to Eastern Standard Time in the United States. The time zone of the capital (Brasília) and of the most populated part of Brazil along the east coast is two hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. The Atlantic islands are in the easternmost time zone. 

Brazil possesses the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, located 350 kilometers (217 mi) northeast of its “horn”, and several small islands and atolls in the Atlantic – Abrolhos, Atol das Rocas, Penedos de São Pedro e São Paulo, Trindade, and Martim Vaz. In the early 1970s, Brazil claimed a territorial sea extending 362 kilometers (225 mi) from the country’s shores, including those of the islands. 

On Brazil’s east coast, the Atlantic coastline extends 7,367 kilometers (4,578 mi). In the west, in clockwise order from the south, Brazil has 15,719 kilometers (9,767 mi) of borders with Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana (overseas department of France). The only South American countries with which Brazil does not share borders are Chile and Ecuador. A few short sections are in question, but there are no true major boundary controversies with any of the neighboring countries. Brazil has the 10th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of 3,830,955 km2 (1,479,140 sq mi). 

Brazil has six major ecosystems: the Amazon Basin, a tropical rainforest system; the Pantanal bordering Paraguay and Bolivia, a tropical wetland system; the Cerrado, a savanna system that covers much of the center of the country; the Caatinga or thorny scrubland habitat of the Northeast; the Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) that extends along the entire coast from the Northeast to the South; and the Pampas or fertile lowland plains of the far South.

HISTORY

Brazil was officially “discovered” in 1500, when a fleet commanded by Portuguese diplomat Pedro Álvares Cabral, on its way to India, landed in Porto Seguro, between Salvador and Rio de Janeiro. (There is, however, strong evidence that other Portuguese adventurers preceded him. Duarte Pacheco Pereira, in his book De Situ Orbis, tells of being in Brazil in 1498, sent by King Manuel of Portugal.) 

Although most settlers preferred the coastal areas (a preference that continues to this day), a few ventured into the hinterlands. Among them were Jesuit missionaries, determined men who marched inland in search of Indian souls to “save,” and the infamous bandeirantes (flag bearers), tough men who marched inland in search of Indians to enslave. (Later they hunted escaped Indian and African slaves.)

For two centuries after Cabral’s discovery, the Portuguese had to periodically deal with foreign powers with designs on Brazil’s resources. Although Portugal and Spain had the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas — which set boundaries for each country in their newly discovered lands — the guidelines were vague, causing the occasional territory dispute. Further, England, France, and Holland didn’t fully recognize the treaty, which was made by Papal decree, and were aggressively seeking new lands in pirate-ridden seas. Such competition made the Lusitanian foothold in the New World tenuous at times. 

In 1989, the country enjoyed its first democratic election in almost three decades. Unfortunately, the Brazilians made the mistake of electing Fernando Collor de Mello. Mello’s corruption did nothing to help the economy, but his peaceful removal from office indicated at least that the country’s political and governmental structures are stable.

SOCIAL CULTURE AND RELIGION

Brazil, officially the Presidential Federated Republic of Brazil is the country with more extension of South America and the most populous of America after the United States. It’s located in the east coast of South America and it is populated by more than 209,3 million people. It borders all other countries in South America except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent’s land area. 

It’s composed of the union of 26 states and is one of the most pluricultural and ethnically diverse nations in the world. Nowadays is a Presidential Republic since 1988 when the new constitution came into effect but it was difficult to afford this. The big extension and the diversity of Brazil makes it so hard to construct a project where everybody have his place and it’s because of this why during several years, the country was immersed in dictatorships and civil wars. Since 1985, when the dictatorships have finished there were 8 presidents of the republic, the last four were: Lula da Silva, Dilma Rousseff, Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro. Brazil is a religiously diverse country, with a tendency of tolerance and acceptance among different religions. The Brazilian population is mostly Catholic due to the cultural heritage of the Portuguese, and various migratory currents throughout history. On the part of Africa, they obtained religious customs of Afro-Brazilian peoples. At the end of the 19th century, spiritualism began to be disseminated in Brazil, which today is the country with the highest number of spiritualists in the world. In recent decades the Protestant religion has grown a lot, thus being a fairly significant part of the population. Judaism has 86,825 faithful, 0.05% of the population. The number of people who claim not to have a religion in 2000 was 7.4%; the group surpassed only by Catholics and Protestants. Many practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions, as well as some spiritualists, are also called Catholics and follow rites of the Catholic Church. Similarly, many spiritualists claim to be Christians despite not accepting some important aspects of traditional Christianity. That kind of social tolerance with syncretism is a peculiar historical framework of the various religions in the country. 

The constitution of brazil defines the state as atheist and aconfesional. This is because of the diversity of the population’s religion but, leaving aside that, 

Brazil is the country in the world with the most Catholic population. With the 64,6% (according to the 2000 census) Brazil has got more than 134M catholic people. But the Catholic is only one of the many religions that are in the country.

POLITICS

The politics of Brazil take place in a framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the President, advised by a cabinet. Legislative power is vested upon the National Congress, a two chamber legislature comprising the Federal Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Judicial power is exercised by the judiciary, consisting of the Supreme Federal Court, the Superior Court of Justice and other Superior Courts, the National Justice Council and the Regional Federal Courts. 

Currently, Brazil is divided politically and administratively into 27 federal units, being 26 states and one federal district. The executive power is exercised by a governor elected to a four-year term. The judiciary is exercised by courts of first and second instance addressing the common justice.

Political Division 

The republic of Brazil is made up of 26 states and a federal district.. The 26 states and the Federal District have their own legislative and executive bodies, the latter embodied in the figure of governors, democratically elected. The prefeitos or mayors, also elected by the people, are the highest municipal authorities, and their management is supervised by the chambers of walkers or town halls, which act as a legislative body at the local level. 

The Brazilian territory has been divided, for eminently statistical purposes, into five major macro regions: North (which includes the states of Rondônia, Acre, Amazonas, Roraima, Pará, Amapá and Tocantins), Northeast (Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do North, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia), Southeast (Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo), Sul (Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul) and Center-West (Mato Grosso do Sul , Mato Grosso, Goiás and Federal District).

ECONOMY

After almost a decade of strong growth, Brazil entered the worst recession in its history in 2015 and 2016. Budget adjustment and favorable economic conditions have favored recovery. In 2018, inflation grew slightly, reaching 3.7% and is expected to increase to 4.2% in 2019. Fiscal consolidation is the main objective of the government, but although the fiscal deficit is expected to reduce in 2019, The president’s promise to reduce the imbalance to zero this year is not feasible. The government budget balance in 2018 registered a 7.3% deficit that should remain at a similar level in 2019 and 2020. If the current government does not address the reform of the pension system, it could jeopardize the strongest economic momentum. However, Congress is still far from approving reform plans. The investigation of Operation «Car Wash», after the global corruption scandal involving Petrobras, has led to the conviction of several members of the Workers Party and the dismissal of the then President Dilma Rousseff in 2016, replaced by Michel Fear. Former President Lula was also sentenced to 12 years in prison. Lula is still popular among Brazilian citizens, but her hopes of running for presidential elections in October 2018 were cut short by the judiciary. The widely anticipated elections were marked by the greater challenge of the population towards the political class and the election of the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro of the Liberal Social Party. Although the policies of the new president are extremely controversial, both in Brazil and abroad, the initial economic response to his victory was positive, mainly due to his new Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes. Regarding foreign policy, the new president intends to focus on bilateral trade agreements, allowing Mercosur members to negotiate bilateral free trade agreements. There are large disparities between regions, and there has been a recent increase in crime rates and criminal violence. The indebtedness of the state of Rio de Janeiro has had serious consequences. Crime increased in the last two years and in February 2018 a controversial military intervention was decided in Rio de Janeiro.

IMPORT/EXPORT

In 2019, China was Brazil’s largest source of imports followed by the United States, Argentina, Netherlands, and Japan. The key sectors of the Brazilian market with higher than average growth are air transportation, telecoms, oil and gas, and mining.

When it comes to more than 88 million Brazilian online shoppers, electronic appliances, computers, fashion, and accessories are the key areas of buying interest. Most Brazilians like to do their shopping through marketplaces and group-buying websites such as Peixe Urbano, a discount website similar to Groupon in the United States. Other popular websites include MercadoLivre Brazil and Magazine Luiza.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Since its independence, on September 7, 1822, Brazil has taken an active part in international relations in all areas, having signed all the most important treaties of the International Community. The Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988 attributes to the National Congress the competence to “resolve definitively on treaties, agreements or 18 international acts that entail onerous commitments to the national heritage”. Brazil was a founding member of the League of Nations in 1919, and was also one of the founding States of the United Nations Organization in 1948; The Brazilian representative was the first President of the UN General Assembly (by tradition, until today, Brazil is the country that begins discussions at all the annual ordinary meetings of the Assembly). The foreign action of the last Brazilian governments has had as main objective to turn the country into a global actor in the international scene, with two basic axes of action: regional integration and sovereign presence in the world. 

The Brazilian vision of its regional relations is structured in concentric circles of integration: first Argentina, then MERCOSUR, South America embodied in UNASUR and, in a more external circle, Latin America. 

In recent years, Brazil has also strengthened relations with the group of countries called BRICS: Russia, India, China and South Africa in addition to Brazil itself. In a meeting held in March 2015 have decided to take another step in their collaboration by agreeing to create their development Bank itself, with an initial authorized capital of 100,000 million dollars and a initial subscribed capital of 50,000 million dollars contributed equally by the founding states, in addition to a contingency currency reserve fund for a value initial of 100,000 million dollars to grant greater financial stability to the partners.