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Brazil: Countries
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With a population of 187 million and an area roughly the size of the United States, Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world and has the largest economy in South America. A nation of rich regional and ethnic diversity, Brazil ... suffers from deep social and economic inequalities: the median income of the wealthiest 10 percent of the population is 30 times greater than that of the bottom 40 percent. Many women, particularly those living in rural areas, have limited access to public services and basic information on sexual and reproductive health, resulting in disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality. Even in the cities, pervasive poverty puts basic health and other social services out of reach for many Brazilians, with particular impacts on women and young people. . Black women are often those in the worst conditions—with an average monthly income around US$127, compared with US$423 for white men.1
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Brazil was a colony of Portugal from its discovery by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until its independence in 1822. Initially independent as the Brazilian Empire, 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 Federative Republic.[2] The Federation is formed by the indissoluble association of the States, the Federal District, and the Municipalities.[2] There are currently 26 States and 5,564 Municipalities.[5]
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Brazil has 10 neighbors: the Department of French Guiana and the countries of Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela, and Colombia bound Brazil on the north. Uruguay and Argentina are on the south, and on the west are Paraguay, Bolivia, and Peru. Ecuador and Chile are the only two countries of continental South America that do not share a border with Brazil. The Atlantic Ocean extends along the entire eastern side of the country, giving it a coastline of 4,578 miles (7,367 km).
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Brazil has one of the world's largest economies, with well-developed agricultural, mining, manufacturing, and service sectors. Vast disparities remain... in the country's distribution of land and wealth. Roughly one third of the workforce is involved in agriculture. The major commercial crops are coffee (Brazil is the world's largest producer and exporter), citrus fruit (especially juice oranges, of which Brazil also is the world's largest producer), soybeans, sugarcane, rice, corn, cocoa, cotton, tobacco, and bananas. Cattle, pigs, and sheep are the most numerous livestock. Timber is also important, although much of it is illegally harvested.
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Brazil’s population is very diverse. This diversity is the result of intermingling between Native Americans, Portuguese settlers, and African slaves, which produced a society of racial and ethnic complexity. Brazil is the only Latin American country settled by the Portuguese. Before the Portuguese arrived in 1500, 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 ethnic mix between these three groups, along with other European peoples who immigrated to Brazil after 1850, has contributed to some distinctly Brazilian cultural forms, especially in music and architecture.
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From the 1960s to the early 1990s, Brazil pursued an ambitious program of nuclear energy and technological development, which included construction of an unsafeguarded uranium enrichment facility under Navy direction. However, Brazil has since disavowed nuclear weapons, become a State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and, with Argentina, established a bilateral inspection agency to verify both countries' pledges to use atomic energy only for peaceful purposes. Brazil mines uranium, which is shipped to foreign countries for conversion and enrichment, and returned to Brazil, where it is fabricated in Resendeinto fuel for its two nuclear power reactors. When completed, a uranium enrichment plant under construction at Resende will allow the country to make its own low-enriched uranium fuel for its nuclear power industry. The plant initially will produce 60 percent of the nuclear fuel used by Brazil's two operational nuclear power reactors. Brazil has indicated that eventually it hopes to produce sufficient fuel for its reactors and for export.
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