Brazil Overview

Brazil is the largest country in South America and fifth largest in the world. The country is famous for its beaches, the amazon rainforest, samba, carnival, and of course their undying passion for futbol. Brazil is a powerhouse as it has won 6 world cups and their players are always in high demand from teams in Europe and it is broadening to other countries as well.

Brazil has 4,650 miles of mostly tropical coastline extending from the north of the equator to the south to the border of Argentina.

It has the most influential and largest economy in Latin America and has been so strong that real estate in some parts has doubled in a few years in the major cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Investments have become so prevalent in the last decade that Brazil has been grouped as one the stronger developing countries known as BRIC. Along with Russia, India, China and South Africa, there have been major improvements in the past few years in its efforts to raise millions of Brazilians up into the middle class thans in part to policies initiated by former President Lula da Silva.

The discovery of major offshore oil reserves could propel the country into the top league of oil-exporting nations

Brazil possesses over 600 mammal species, 1,500 fish species, 1,600 bird species, and an amazing 100,000 different types of insects.

Brazil has a climate that is extremely broad and diverse mainly due to its geographical setting with regions that stretch out to the coast which can bring powerful air masses on its land.

Capital:	Brasilia
Leader:	President: Dilma Rousseff
Government type:	Democratic, Federal republic, Constitutional republic, Representative democracy
Population:	200,674,130 (Source: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE)
Languages:	Portuguese (official), German (1,500,000) , Japanese (380,000), Italian (50,000), Arabic, Ukrainian 1.
Ethnic Diversity:	More than 53.7 percent of people in Brazil are white (mostly Spanish and Italian descent), Mulatto 38.5% (mixed white and african ancestry), Black 6.2%, Amerindian, or other non-white groups 3%
Official Currency:	Brazilian Real ($RS) Exchange Rates
Climate:	There are five major climates in Brazil: Humid equatorial climate;  includes the Amazôn;  Tropical climate - large section of the center part and the north-eastern coast; Tropical dry climate - region lying inland from the coast of northeastern Brazil and the inner valley of the São Francisco river; Coastal humid climate - the smaller coastlines. Humid subtropical climate - consists of the southern region
National Holiday:	7 Sept
Religion:	Catholic (74%), Prostestant (15%), Christianity (1.3%), is the dominant religion  with other major religions - 7% are non-religious
Area:	total: 8.55 million sq km (3.3 million sq miles)
Country Phone Code:	55

Sources:
[1] Ethnologue.org