Brazil

From Roach Busters

Revision as of 20:34, 15 June 2008 by Knut (Talk | contribs)
República dos Estados Unidos do Brasil
Republic of the United States of Brazil

Flag of Brazil Coat of arms of Brazil
Flag Coat of arms

Motto
"Ordem e Progresso" (Portuguese)
"Order and Progress"

Anthem
Hino Nacional Brasileiro
(National Anthem of Brazil)

Location of Brazil

Capital

Largest city
Brasília
15°45′S 47°57′W
São Paulo

Official languages Portuguese

Demonym Brazilian

Government
 - President
 - Vice-President
Unitary presidential republic
João de Oliveira Mendonça
Afonso Branco

Independence
 - Declared
 - Recognized
 - Republic
 - Coup d'état
from Portugal
September 7, 1822
August 29, 1825
November 15, 1889
March 31, 1964

Area
 - Total

 - Water (%)

8,514,877 km²
3,287,597 sq mi
0.65

Population
 - 2008 estimate
 - 2007 census
 - Density
 

186,757,608
183,987,291
22/km²
57/sq mi

GDP (PPP)
 - Total
 - Per capita
2007 estimate
$1.804 trillion
$11,873

GDP (nominal)
 - Total
 - Per capita
2007 estimate
$1.313 trillion
$6,842

Gini (2005) 56.6 (high)

HDI (2005) 0.800 (high)

Currency Real (R$) (BRL)

Time zone
- Summer (DST)
BRT (UTC -2 to -4)
BRST (UTC -2 to -3)

Internet TLD .br

Calling code +55

Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil), officially the Republic of the United States of Brazil (Portuguese: República dos Estados Unidos do Brasil) is a country in South America. With a population of over 185 million and an area of 8,514,877 km² (3,287,597 sq mi), it is one of the largest and most populous countries in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of over 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi). It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana and the overseas department of French Guiana; and on the northwest, west, southwest, and south by the Confederate States of Latin America. Numerous archipelagos are part of the Brazilian territory, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz.

Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until its independence in 1822. Initially independent as the Empire of Brazil, the country has been a republic since 1889, although the bicameral legislature, now called Congress, dates back to 1824, when the first constitution was ratified. Its current constitution defines Brazil as a federal republic, but in practice the country is a unitary state in which the states enjoy little autonomy. Brazil comprises 21 States (including the Distrito Federal, or "Federal District") and 5,564 Municipalities.

Economic reforms have transformed Brazil into a great power. The country is a founding member of the League of Nations. A predominantly Roman Catholic, Portuguese-speaking, and multiethnic society, Brazil is also home to a diversity of wildlife, natural environments, and extensive natural resources in a variety of protected habitats.

Contents

History

Origins

Brazilian natives, by Jean-Baptiste Debret.

Within Brazil's current borders, most native tribes who were living in the land by the year 1500 are thought to have descended from the first wave of migrants from North Asia (Siberia), who are believed to have crossed the Bering Land Bridge at the end of the last Ice Age, around 9000 BC. At the time of European discovery, the territory of modern Brazil had as many as 2,000 nations and tribes, an estimated total population of nearly 3 million Amerindians. A somewhat dated linguistic survey found 188 living indigenous languages with 155,000 total speakers. On 18 January 2007, Fundação Nacional do Índio reported that it had confirmed the presence of 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil, up from 40 in 2005. With this addition, Brazil is now confirmed as having the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world, even more than the island of New Guinea. When the Portuguese arrived in 1500, the Amerindians were mostly semi-nomadic tribes, living mainly on the coast and along the banks of major rivers.

Unlike Christopher Columbus who thought he had reached the East Indies, the Portuguese, most notably by Vasco da Gama, had already reached India via the Indian Ocean route when they reached Brazil. Nevertheless, the word índios ("Indians") was by then established to designate the peoples of the New World and stuck being used today in the Portuguese language, while the people of India are called indianos in order to distinguish the two peoples. Initially, the Europeans saw the natives as noble savages, and miscegenation of the population began right away. Tribal warfare, cannibalism, and the pursuit of brazilwood for its treasured red dye convinced the Portuguese that they should civilize the Amerindians.

Colonization

Map of Brazil issued by the Portuguese explorers in 1519.

Initially Portugal had little interest in Brazil, mainly because of high profits gained through commerce with Indochina. After 1530, the Portuguese Crown devised the Hereditary Captaincies system to effectively occupy its new colony, and later took direct control of the failed captaincies. Although temporary trading posts were established earlier to collect brazilwood, used as a dye, with permanent settlement came the establishment of the sugar cane industry and its intensive labor. Several early settlements were founded across the coast, among them the colonial capital, Salvador, established in 1549 at the Bay of All Saints in the north, and the city of Rio de Janeiro on March 1567, in the south. The Portuguese colonists adopted an economy based on the production of agricultural goods that were exported to Europe. Sugar became by far the most important Brazilian colonial product until the early 18th century. Even though Brazilian sugar was reputed as being of high quality, the industry faced a crisis during the 17th and 18th centuries when the Dutch and the French started producing sugar in the Antilles, located much closer to Europe, causing sugar prices to fall.

During the 18th century, private explorers who called themselves the Bandeirantes found gold and diamond deposits in the state of Minas Gerais. The exploration of these mines were mostly used to finance the Portuguese Royal Court's expenditure with both the preservation of its Global Empire and the support of its luxury lifestyle at mainland. The way in which such deposits were exploited by the Portuguese Crown and the powerful local elites, however, burdened colonial Brazil with excessive taxes. Some popular movements supporting independence came about against the taxes established by the colonial government, such as the Tiradentes in 1789, but the secessionist movements were often dismissed by the authorities of the ruling colonial regime. Gold production declined towards the end of the 18th century, starting a period of relative stagnation of the Brazilian hinterland. Both Amerindian and African slaves' man power were largely used in Brazil's colonial economy.

In contrast to the neighboring Spanish possessions in South America, the Portuguese colony of Brazil kept its territorial, political and linguistic integrity due to the action of the Portuguese administrative effort. Although the colony was threatened by other nations across the Portuguese rule era, in particular by Dutch and French powers, the authorities and the people ultimately managed to protect its borders from foreign attacks. Portugal even had to send bullion to Brazil, a spectacular reversal of the colonial trend, in order to protect the integrity of the colony.

Empire

Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil in 1873.

In 1808, the Portuguese court, fleeing from Napoleon’s troops who had invaded Portugal, established themselves in the city of Rio de Janeiro, which thus became the seat of government of Portugal and the entire Portuguese Empire, even though being located outside of Europe. Rio de Janeiro was the capital of the Portuguese empire from 1808 to 1815. After then the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves (1815-1825) was created with Lisbon as its capital. After João VI returned to Portugal in 1821, his heir-apparent Pedro became regent of the Kingdom of Brazil, within the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Following a series of political incidents and disputes, Brazil achieved its independence from Portugal on September 7, 1822. On October 12, 1822, Dom Pedro became the first Emperor of Brazil, being crowned on December 1, 1822. Portugal would recognize Brazil as an independent country in 1825.

In 1824, Pedro closed the Constituent Assembly, stating that the body was "endangering liberty". Pedro then produced a constitution modeled on that of Portugal (1822) and France (1814). It specified indirect elections and created the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government; however, it also added a fourth branch, the "moderating power", to be held by the Emperor. Pedro's government was considered economically and administratively inefficient. Political pressures eventually made the Emperor step down on April 7, 1831. He returned to Portugal leaving behind his five-year-old son Pedro II. Until Pedro II reached maturity, Brazil was governed by regents from 1831 to 1840. The regency period was turbulent and marked by numerous local revolts including the Male Revolt, the largest urban slave rebellion in the Americas, which took place in Bahia in 1835.

On July 23, 1840, Pedro II was crowned Emperor. His government was marked by a substantial rise in coffee exports, the War of the Triple Alliance, and the end of slave trade from Africa in 1865, although slavery in Brazilian territory would only be abolished in 1888. Brazil stopped trading slaves from Africa in 1850, with the Eusébio de Queirós law, and abandoned slavery altogether in 1888, thus becoming the last country of the Americas to ban slavery. When slavery was finally abolished, a large influx of European immigrants took place. By the 1870s, the Emperor's control of domestic politics had started to deteriorate in face of crises with the Catholic Church, the Army and the slaveholders. The Republican movement slowly gained strength. In the end, the empire fell due to a military coup d'etat and because the dominant classes no longer needed it to protect their interests and deeply resented the abolition of slavery. Indeed, imperial centralization ran counter to their desire for local autonomy. By 1889 Pedro II had stepped down and the Republican system had been adopted to Brazil.








































































States of Brazil

  1. Amazonas
  2. Pará
  3. Maranhão
  4. Piauí
  5. Ceará
  6. Rio Grande do Norte
  7. Paraíba
  8. Pernambuco
  9. Alagoas
  10. Sergipe
  11. Bahia
  12. Espírito Santo
  13. Rio de Janeiro
  14. Minas Gerais
  15. Goiás
  16. Mato Grosso
  17. São Paulo
  18. Paraná
  19. Santa Catarina
  20. Rio Grande do Sul
  21. Distrito Federal

List of Brazilian states

State Abbreviation Capital Area Population (2005) Density
Alagaos AL Maceió 27,767.7 km² 3,015,912 108.61
Amazonas AM Manaus 1,947,626.1 km² 4,279,690 2.2
Bahia BA Salvador 564,692.7 km² 13,815,334 24.46
Ceará CE Fortazela 148,825.6 km² 8,097,276 54.40
Distrito Federal DF Brasília 5,802 km² 2,383,784 410.9
Espírito Santo ES Vitória 46,077.5 km² 3,408,365 73.97
Goiás GO Goiânia 623,529.7 km² 9,258,753 14.85
Maranhão MA São Luís 331,983.3 km² 6,103,327 18.38
Mato Grosso MT Cuiabá 1,498,059.1 km² 6,602,336 4.4
Minas Gerais MG Belo Horizonte 586,528.3 km² 19,237,450 32.79
Pará PA Belém 1,390,504.1 km² 7,565,173 5.44
Paraíba PB João Pessoa 56,439.8 km² 3,595,886 63.71
Paraná PR Curitiba 199,314.9 km² 10,261,856 51.48
Pernambuco PE Recife 98,311.6 km² 8,413,593 85.58
Piauí PI Teresina 251,529.2 km² 3,006,885 11.95
Rio de Janeiro RJ Rio de Janeiro 43,696.1km² 15,383,407 352.05
Rio Grande do Norte RN Natal 52,796.8 km² 3,003,087 56.88
Rio Grande do Sul RS Porto Alegre 281,748.5 km² 10,845,087 38.49
Santa Catarina SC Florianópolis 95,346.2 km² 5,866,568 61.53
São Paulo SP São Paulo 248,209.4 km² 40,442,795 162.93
Sergipe SE Aracaju 21,910.3 km² 1,967,761 89.81

Politics

to be added

The composition of the current cabinet is as follows:

  • Minister of Aeronautics: Sérgio Fortes
  • Minister of Agriculture: Antônio Corrêa Prestes
  • Minister of Communications: Vítor Ribeiro
  • Minister of Development, Industry, and Commerce: Augusto Geisel
  • Minister of Education: Mário Rodrigues
  • Minister of External Relations: Deodoro Cabral
  • Minister of Finance: José Salazar
  • Minister of Health: Francisco Pinheiro
  • Minister of Justice: Paulo Inácio dos Santos
  • Minister of Labor and Employment: Afonso Luiza Rezende
  • Minister of Mines and Energy: Luís de Campos Meirelles
  • Minister of the Navy: Carlos Guimarães Rosa
  • Minister of Planning, Budget, and Management: Gilberto de Alencar Tavares
  • Minister of Transport: Fernando Cautiero e Silva
  • Minister of War: João Vieira Soares
Personal tools