Brazil is a vibrant and exciting country. Spanning a huge area and 5 different time zones Brazil is an eclectic mixture of people, geography, culture and landscapes. We have put together our top 27 facts about captivating Brazil.
Brazil is home to one of the world’s most hazardous islands.
Ilha do Queimada Grande, sometimes known as Snake Island, is fewer than 100 miles from Sao Paulo but is inaccessible.
It is illegal to enter the island without the explicit approval of the Brazilian Navy. This is due to the island’s abundance of the endangered Golden Lancehead snake. The island is said to have one snake for every square meter!
During Brazil’s Carnival, around 10 million gallons of beer are drank.
Brazil’s carnival is well-known across the globe. Every day throughout the celebration, almost two million people flock to the streets to watch the parades and gatherings. There’s also enough of beer to go around!
Over 25,000 portable toilets are placed in Rio de Janeiro during Carnival.
Despite the large supply of bathrooms, public urinating remains an issue throughout carnival. Which, given the amount of beer drunk, should come as no surprise.
Brazil is the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest nation.
Brazil is the biggest nation in the Southern Hemisphere, covering over 8.5 million square kilometers and accounting for half of South America’s landmass!
Brazilians are not classified as Hispanic.
The English-speaking world often uses the phrases “Hispanic” and “Latin American” interchangeably. This, however, is false.
People who are Hispanic are descended from a Spanish-speaking country. Brazilians are not considered Hispanic since Portuguese is the country’s official language.
The evidence implies that human colonization in Brazil started more than 30,000 years ago.
This is one of the oldest evidences of humans in the Americas. Previously, it was thought that the Clovis people were the first humans to set foot on the continents, having crossed the Bering land bridge.
In Brazil, Amazon River ultimately reaches the sea.
The Amazon River, which stretches about 7000 kilometers from Peru to the Atlantic Ocean, ultimately joins the sea around Ilha de Marajó, one of South America’s most interesting islands.
This river island is home to some of the most stunning fauna in South America, including water buffalo, caimans, and piranhas.
Brazil requires all citizens to vote.
Everyone between the ages of 18 and 70 was required to vote in elections beginning in 1932. Those aged 16-17 and above 70 have the opportunity but not the obligation to vote. Illiterate persons are also allowed to vote absentee.
Brasilia is the capital city of Brazil.
Here’s a pub quiz question: Brazil’s capital city is neither Rio de Janeiro nor So Paulo. Brasilia, Brazil’s third most populated city, serves as the country’s capital.
It was constructed in the late 1950s to relocate the capital from Rio de Janeiro, where it had been for the previous 197 years, to a more central geographical site. Lcio Costa planned and constructed Brasilia in 41 months.
Brazil was a Portuguese colony for over 300 years
Brazil, like every other South American country, was colonized by a European superpower. In the year 1500, Portuguese sailors arrived in Brazil and claimed the nation for themselves.
When Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, they had already established who ‘possessed’ certain portions of the New World.
Arriving six years later in Brazil was essentially the Portuguese showing their muscles and creating a colony in the New World.
Prisoners in some of Brazil’s most overcrowded facilities are given the opportunity to decrease their sentences through reading
Brazil currently spans four time zones, but just three from east to west during the previous five years.
Brazil is vast enough to have four time zones, one of which barely includes a few tiny Atlantic islands. Brazil has just three time zones for five years after eliminating the westernmost zone in 2008.
It was reestablished in 2013 after a referendum in which a slim majority voted to return to the previous method of doing things.
Brazil has the largest population density of uncontacted people in the planet.
The Brazilian Amazon is said to be home to between 30-100 uncontacted communities. More than anyplace else in the planet!
Some of these communities are nomadic hunter-gatherers, while others rely on subsistence farming. Most people prefer not to be approached.
Brazil has a population of about 210 million people.
Brazil’s population is expected to be over 213 million in 2021, four times that of the next biggest in South America (Colombia) and the sixth-largest in the globe!
Brazil is also one of the world’s most varied nations. It’s generally believed that anybody, regardless of complexion, hair, or eye colour, may pass for a Brazilian.
In 1888, Brazil was the last nation in the Americas to abolish slavery.
During Brazil’s 300-year enslavement, it is believed that 4-12 million African slaves were “imported” into the nation. This represents around 40% of all slaves brought to the Americas.
The world’s highest vertical cemetery is located in Brazil.
Vertical graves are popular around the globe, but the Memorial Necropole Ecumenica in Santos is the highest.
This 108-meter-tall cemetery has 32 storeys and can house tens of thousands of remains. Inside, there are wake and funeral function rooms, the biggest of which can accommodate 300 mourners with its white marble, Neo-Gothic walls.
Christ the Redeemer’s foundations were constructed before the statue was created.
To commemorate 100 years of freedom, the Catholic Church in Rio de Janeiro lay the groundwork for what would become the world’s biggest and most iconic Art Deco style monument in 1922.
The monument had not even been created at the time; a competition to choose a designer was launched later that year.
Brazil’s international soccer squad is said to have been founded to compete with Exeter City.
Exeter City Football Club, from peaceful Exeter in Devon, Southern England, was nominated by the FA (Football Association) in England to play a series of games in South America in 1914.
They were picked not because they were the greatest, but because they were a ‘really representative’ squad. Exeter had a population of just under 60,000 people at the time, and its football club was just 10 years old.
Brazil is the most successful nation in World Cup soccer history.4
The country has five victories (1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, and 2002), two second-place results (1950 and 1998), and two third-place finishes (1950 and 1998). (1938 and 1978).
They are the only team that have participated in every World Cup without missing a game or having to go to a playoff round.
Brazil borders practically every other South American nation.
Brazil borders practically every other South American country, with boundaries extending almost 10,500 miles (16,900 km).
To the north are Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, to the south are Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina, and to the west are Bolivia and Peru.
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