Brazil
Brazil (officially Federative Republic of Brazil) is a country in South America, with its capital at Brasília, and is home to roughly 212.0M people.
Portuguese is the official language; the currency in circulation is Brazilian real (R$); people from here are called Brazilian.
- »It holds about 60% of the Amazon rainforest and roughly a tenth of all known species.
- »Brazil is the only South American country whose main language is Portuguese.
- »Brasília was built from nothing in 41 months and laid out in the shape of an aeroplane.
It straddles both the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.
Brazil touches nine neighbours: Argentina to the south, Bolivia to the southwest, Colombia to the northwest, Guyana to the north, Paraguay to the south, Peru to the west, Suriname to the north, Uruguay to the south and Venezuela to the northwest. Directions run from one centre to the other.
Brasília was raised on empty savannah in 41 months and inaugurated in 1960 to pull development inland from the coast. Its plan is laid out in the shape of an aeroplane and the whole city is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
8,497,241 km² (3,280,802 sq mi), 5th largest of 198 countries and territories on file.
Population 211,998,573, 7th of 198 on file. That averages 25 per km² (65 per sq mi).
The green and yellow come from the houses of Bragança and Habsburg. The blue globe shows the night sky over Rio on 15 November 1889, the morning the republic was declared; each of the 27 stars is a state, and the banner reads 'Ordem e Progresso'.