Brazil

The Amazon rainforest covers much of northern Brazil, crossed by the Amazon River and thousands of smaller rivers. The Amazon carries more water than any other river on Earth, and together these waterways form a vast river network through the rainforest. In many parts of the region, roads are scarce, so rivers serve as highways, with boats carrying people, food, school supplies, and other goods between communities.

Much of central Brazil is covered by a vast tropical savanna of grasses, shrubs, and scattered trees called the cerrado. During its long dry season, the landscape can look brown and harsh, but many plants survive with thick bark and roots that reach deep underground for water. Giant anteaters, long-legged maned wolves, armadillos, and ostrich-like rheas roam the grasslands. Despite its dry appearance, the cerrado is one of the most biologically rich savannas in the world.

In western Brazil, near the borders with Bolivia and Paraguay, lies the Pantanal, one of the world's largest tropical wetlands. During the rainy season, rivers overflow and flood huge areas of grassland and forest. As the water rises and falls through the year, the wetlands support abundant wildlife, including jaguars, capybaras, caimans, giant otters, and large flocks of birds.

Brazil stretches so far from north to south that its climates can feel like different worlds. The Amazon in the north is hot and wet, while the Caatinga of the northeast is a dry landscape of thorny shrubs, cacti, and plants built to survive long stretches without rain. Farther south, winters are cool enough to bring frost—and occasionally even snow—to some higher and inland areas.

Brazil's biggest cities cluster along the Atlantic side of the country, especially in the southeast. São Paulo grew into Brazil's largest business and industrial center, while coastal Rio de Janeiro became a major cultural and tourism center. This pattern has deep roots: Portuguese colonists first built settlements, plantations, and ports along the Atlantic, and later trade, railroads, and industry drew even more people to the same region.

Portuguese became Brazil's main language after Portugal began colonizing the region in the early 1500s. Brazil became independent in 1822, but Portuguese remained the country's official language. Brazilian Portuguese sounds different from region to region: accents, vocabulary, and expressions in places such as Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and the far south can be noticeably different even though people share the same language.

Brazil is home to hundreds of Indigenous peoples who speak many different languages and have distinct cultures and histories. Many of the country's largest Indigenous territories are in the Amazon, where rivers often serve as major routes between communities and the surrounding forest provides food, medicines, building materials, and other resources. Indigenous Brazilians also live throughout the rest of the country, including in towns and cities.

Millions of Africans were forcibly brought to Brazil during the Atlantic slave trade, more than to any other country in the Americas. Many arrived through northeastern ports, especially Salvador in Bahia, where enslaved Africans and their descendants formed large communities. Slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, and freed people and their descendants continued shaping Brazilian culture through music, food, religion, dance, and language. Bahia remains one of the strongest centers of Afro-Brazilian culture today.

Central Brazil's cerrado was once considered poorly suited to large-scale farming because its soils are naturally acidic and low in nutrients. Brazilian scientists learned how to improve the soil and developed soybean varieties adapted to the tropical climate. The result was a dramatic transformation: vast soybean fields and cattle ranches now cover parts of the cerrado, helping make Brazil a major food exporter. But that expansion has also destroyed habitat for thousands of plant and animal species in one of the world's most biodiverse savannas.

São Paulo's rise began with coffee. In the 1800s and early 1900s, fortunes made from coffee helped finance railroads, banks, and businesses, while immigrants from Europe and Japan and migrants from other parts of Brazil came to the region looking for work. Factories followed, and São Paulo grew into Brazil's largest city and the heart of its biggest industrial region. Today southeastern Brazil produces everything from cars and steel to airplanes, medicines, machinery, and food products.

The Amazon is the world's largest tropical rainforest, home to extraordinary biodiversity and millions of people, including many Indigenous communities. Its forests store enormous amounts of carbon, and its rivers carry vast quantities of freshwater across northern Brazil. Logging, mining, farming, and cattle ranching have brought roads and development into parts of the forest, but they have also caused deforestation and conflicts over Indigenous lands. Protected areas and Indigenous territories preserve large stretches of rainforest.

Brazil's capital, Brasília, was built in the country's interior and officially opened in 1960, replacing Rio de Janeiro as the national capital. Brazil had long been more heavily settled along the Atlantic coast, and leaders wanted the new capital to encourage development farther inland and connect the country's interior more closely with the rest of Brazil. The city was planned and constructed in just a few years on Brazil's central plateau.