Brazil,[b] officially the Federative Republic of Brazil,[c] is the largest and easternmost country in South

America and Latin America. It is the world's fifth-largest country by area and one of the most
populated countries. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. Brazil is
a federation composed of 26 states and a Federal District. It is the only country in
the Americas where Portuguese is an official language.[11][12] Brazil is among the world's
most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from
around the world.[13]

Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi).
[14]
Covering roughly half of South America's land area, it borders all other countries and territories on
the continent except Ecuador and Chile.[15] Brazil's Amazon basin includes a vast tropical forest home
to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning
numerous protected habitats.[14] This unique environmental heritage positions Brazil at number one
of 17 megadiverse countries. The country's natural richness is also the subject of significant global
interest, as environmental degradation (through processes such as deforestation) has direct impacts
on global issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss.

The territory of present-day Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing of
explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500. Subsequently claimed by the Portuguese Empire, Brazil
remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from
Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation
of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with
the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and
a parliamentary system. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a
bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. Slavery was abolished in 1888. The
country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An
authoritarian military dictatorship emerged in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian
governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as
a democratic federal republic.[16] Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in
the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[17]

Brazil is a regional and middle power[18][19][20] that is an emerging power[21][22][23][24] and a major non-
NATO ally of the United States.[25] Categorized as a developing country, Brazil is considered an
advanced emerging economy,[26] having the one of the-largest GDP in the world in both nominal
and PPP terms—the largest in Latin America and the Southern Hemisphere.[7][27] Classified as an
upper-middle income economy by the World Bank,[28] and a newly industrialized country by the IMF,
[29]
Brazil has the largest share of wealth and the most complex economy in South America. It is also
one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.
[30]
Despite its growing economic and global profile, the country continues to face high levels
of corruption, crime and social inequality. Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations,
the G20, BRICS, G4, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American
States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries and also an observer state of the Arab
League.[31]

Etymology

Main article: Name of Brazil

The word Brazil probably comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew
plentifully along the Brazilian coast.[32] In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the
word brasil commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa ('ember') and
the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium).[33] It has alternatively been suggested that this is a folk
etymology for a word for the plant related to an Arabic or Asian word for a red plant.
[34]
As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was highly valued by the European textile industry and
was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil.[35] Throughout the 16th century, massive
amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi) along the Brazilian coast,
who sold the timber to European traders (mostly Portuguese, but also French) in return for assorted
European consumer goods.[36]

The official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy
Cross" (Terra da Santa Cruz),[37] but European sailors and merchants commonly called it the "Land of
Brazil" (Terra do Brasil) because of the brazilwood trade.[38] The popular appellation eclipsed and
eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name. Some early sailors called it the "Land of
Parrots".[39]

In the Guaraní language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama", meaning 'land
of the palm trees'.[40]

History

Main article: History of Brazil

For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Brazilian history.

Pre-Cabraline era

Main article: Pre-Cabraline history of Brazil

See also: Indigenous peoples in Brazil and Marajoara culture

Rock art at Serra da Capivara National Park, one of the largest

and oldest concentrations of prehistoric sites in the Americas[41]

Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area
of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least
11,000 years.[42][43] The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in
the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago (6000 BC). The pottery was
found near Santarém and provides evidence that the region supported a complex prehistoric culture.
[44]
The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from AD 400 to 1400, developing
sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, and complex social
formations such as chiefdoms.[45]

Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated
indigenous population of 7 million people,[46] mostly semi-nomadic, who subsisted on hunting,
fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. The population comprised several large indigenous ethnic
groups (e.g., the Tupis, Guaranis, Gês, and Arawaks). The Tupi people were subdivided into
the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás.[47]

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups were
marked by wars that arose from differences in culture, language and moral beliefs.[48] These wars also
involved large-scale military actions on land and water, with cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war.
[49][50]
While heredity had some weight, leadership was a status more won over time than assigned in
succession ceremonies and conventions.[48] Slavery among the indigenous groups had a different
meaning than it had for Europeans, since it originated from a diverse socioeconomic organization, in
which asymmetries were translated into kinship relations.[51]

Portuguese colonization

Main articles: Colonial Brazil and Portuguese Empire

See also: Slavery in Brazil, War of the Emboabas, and Minas Gerais Conspiracy

Pedro Álvares Cabral landing in Porto Seguro in 1500, ushering in more than 300 years of Portuguese
rule

Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, was the center of the Brazilian Gold Rush and was designated a World
Heritage Site by UNESCO due to its Baroque colonial architecture.

Execution of the Punishment of the Whip by Jean-Baptiste Debret. Nearly 5 million enslaved Africans
were imported to Brazil during the Atlantic slave trade, more than any country.[52]
Following the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, the land now called Brazil was claimed for the Portuguese
Empire on 22 April 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares
Cabral.[53] The Portuguese encountered indigenous peoples divided into several ethnic societies, most
of whom spoke languages of the Tupi–Guarani family and fought among themselves.[54] Though the
first settlement was founded in 1532, colonization effectively began in 1534, when King John III of
Portugal divided the territory into the fifteen private and autonomous captaincies.[55][56]

However, the decentralized and unorganized tendencies of the captaincies proved problematic, and
in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the Governorate General of Brazil in the city
of Salvador, which became the capital of a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South
America.[56][57] In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in
constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other.[58][59]
[60][61]

By the mid-16th century, cane sugar had become Brazil's most important export,[54][62] while slaves
purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa in the slave market of Western Africa[63] (not only those from
Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique), had become its largest import,[64]
[65]
to cope with sugarcane plantations, due to increasing international demand for Brazilian sugar.[66]
[67]
Brazil received more than 2.8 million slaves from Africa between the years 1500 and 1800.[68]

By the end of the 17th century, sugarcane exports began to decline[69] and the discovery of gold
by bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new backbone of the colony's economy, fostering
a gold rush[70] which attracted thousands of new settlers to Brazil from Portugal and all Portuguese
colonies around the world.[71] This increased level of immigration in turn caused some
conflicts between newcomers and old settlers.[72]

Portuguese expeditions known as bandeiras gradually expanded Brazil's original colonial frontiers in
South America to its approximately current borders.[73][74] In this era other European powers tried to
colonize parts of Brazil, in incursions that the Portuguese had to fight, notably the French in Rio
during the 1560s, in Maranhão during the 1610s, and the Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco, during
the Dutch–Portuguese War, after the end of Iberian Union.[75]

The Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil had two objectives that would ensure colonial order
and the monopoly of Portugal's wealthiest and largest colony: to keep under control and eradicate all
forms of slave rebellion and resistance, such as the Quilombo of Palmares,[76] and to repress all
movements for autonomy or independence, such as the Minas Gerais Conspiracy.[77]

Elevation to kingdom

Main article: United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves

See also: Invasion of Portugal (1807) and Transfer of the Portuguese court to Brazil

The Acclamation of King João VI of the United Kingdom of

Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in Rio de Janeiro, 6 February 1818
In late 1807, Spanish and Napoleonic forces threatened the security of continental Portugal,
causing Prince Regent John, in the name of Queen Maria I, to move the royal
court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.[78] There they established some of Brazil's first financial
institutions, such as its local stock exchanges[79] and its National Bank, additionally ending the
Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian trade and opening Brazil's ports to other nations. In 1809, in
retaliation for being forced into exile, the Prince Regent ordered the conquest of French Guiana.[80]

With the end of the Peninsular War in 1814, the courts of Europe demanded that Queen Maria I and
Prince Regent John return to Portugal, deeming it unfit for the head of an ancient European
monarchy to reside in a colony. In 1815, to justify continuing to live in Brazil, where the royal court
had thrived for six years, the Crown established the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the
Algarves, thus creating a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state.[81] However, the leadership in
Portugal, resentful of the new status of its larger colony, continued to demand the return of the court
to Lisbon (see Liberal Revolution of 1820). In 1821, acceding to the demands of revolutionaries who
had taken the city of Porto,[82] John VI departed for Lisbon. There he swore an oath to the new
constitution, leaving his son, Prince Pedro de Alcântara, as Regent of the Kingdom of Brazil.[83]

Independent empire

Main articles: Independence of Brazil and Empire of Brazil

Declaration of the Brazilian independence by Pedro I on 7

September 1822

Tensions between Portuguese and Brazilians increased and the Portuguese Cortes, guided by the
new political regime imposed by the Liberal Revolution, tried to re-establish Brazil as a colony.[84] The
Brazilians refused to yield, and Prince Pedro decided to stand with them, declaring the country's
independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822.[85] A month later, Prince Pedro was declared the
first Emperor of Brazil, with the royal title of Dom Pedro I, resulting in the founding of the Empire of
Brazil.[86]

The Brazilian War of Independence, which had already begun along this process, spread through the
northern, northeastern regions and in the Cisplatina province.[87] The last Portuguese soldiers
surrendered on 8 March 1824;[88] Portugal officially recognized Brazilian independence on 29 August
1825.[89]

On 7 April 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberal
and conservative sides of politics, including an attempt of republican secession[90] and unreconciled
to the way that absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI, Pedro I departed
for Portugal to reclaim his daughter's crown after abdicating the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-
year-old son and heir (Dom Pedro II).[91]
 Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil between 1831 and 1889

As the new Emperor could not exert his constitutional powers until he came of age, a regency was
set up by the National Assembly.[92] In the absence of a charismatic figure who could represent a
moderate face of power, during this period a series of localized rebellions took place, such as
the Cabanagem in Grão-Pará, the Malê Revolt in Salvador, the Balaiada (Maranhão),
the Sabinada (Bahia), and the Ragamuffin War, which began in Rio Grande do Sul and was supported
by Giuseppe Garibaldi. These emerged from the provinces' dissatisfaction with the central power,
coupled with old and latent social tensions peculiar to a vast, slaveholding and newly
independent nation state.[93] This period of internal political and social upheaval, which included
the Praieira revolt in Pernambuco, was overcome only at the end of the 1840s, years after the end of
the regency, which occurred with the premature coronation of Pedro II in 1841.[94]

During the last phase of the monarchy, internal political debate centered on the issue of slavery.
The Atlantic slave trade was abandoned in 1850,[95] as a result of the British Aberdeen Act and
the Eusébio de Queirós Law, but only in May 1888, after a long process of internal mobilization and
debate for an ethical and legal dismantling of slavery in the country, was the institution formally
abolished with the approval of the Golden Law.[96]

The foreign-affairs policies of the monarchy dealt with issues with the countries of the Southern
Cone with whom Brazil had borders. Long after the Cisplatine War that resulted in the independence
of Uruguay,[97] Brazil won three international wars during the 58-year reign of Pedro II: the Platine
War, the Uruguayan War and the devastating Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian
history.[98][99]

Although there was no desire among the majority of Brazilians to change the country's form of
government,[100] on 15 November 1889, in disagreement with the majority of the Imperial
Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites (for different reasons), the monarchy was
overthrown by a military coup.[101] A few days later, the national flag was replaced with a new design
that included the national motto "Ordem e Progresso", influenced by positivism. 15 November is
now Republic Day, a national holiday.[102]

Early republic

Main articles: First Brazilian Republic, Vargas Era, and Second Brazilian Republic
Proclamation of the Republic, 1893, oil on canvas by Benedito Calixto

Getúlio Vargas (center) during the Revolution of 1930

Brazilian Expeditionary Force in Massarosa, Italy, during WWII

The early republican government was a military dictatorship, with the army dominating affairs both
in Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled
by those in power.[103] Not until 1894, following an economic crisis and a military one, did civilians
take power, remaining there until October 1930.[104][105][106]

In relation to its foreign policy, the country in this first republican period maintained a relative
balance characterized by a success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries,[107] only
broken by the Acre War (1899–1902) and its involvement in World War I (1914–1918),[108][109]
[110]
followed by a failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the League of Nations;[111] Internally,
from the crisis of Encilhamento[112][113][114] and the Navy Revolts,[115] a prolonged cycle of financial,
political and social instability began until the 1920s, keeping the country besieged by various
rebellions, both civilian[116][117][118] and military.[119][120][121]

Little by little, a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an
extent that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential
candidate Getúlio Vargas, supported by most of the military, successfully led the Revolution of 1930.
[122][123]
Vargas and the military were supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed down
Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states'
governors with his own supporters.[124][125]
In the 1930s, three attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power failed. The first was
the Constitutionalist Revolution in 1932, led by São Paulo's oligarchy. The second was a Communist
uprising in November 1935, and the last one a putsch attempt by local fascists in May 1938.[126][127]
[128]
The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which Congress transferred more power to the
executive branch. The 1937 coup d'état resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election and
formalized Vargas as dictator, beginning the Estado Novo era. During this period, government
brutality and censorship of the press increased.[129]

During World War II, Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country
suffered retaliation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic,
and, therefore, entered the war on the allied side.[130][131][132] In addition to its participation in the
battle of the Atlantic, Brazil also sent an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign.[133]

With the Allied victory in 1945 and the end of the fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas's position
became unsustainable, and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with democracy
"reinstated" by the same army that had ended it 15 years earlier.[134] Vargas committed suicide in
August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950.[135][136]

Contemporary era

Main articles: Military dictatorship in Brazil and History of Brazil since 1985

Construction of the National Congress building in Brasília, 1959,

during the JK administration

Several brief interim governments followed Vargas's suicide.[137] Juscelino Kubitschek became
president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory posture towards the political opposition that allowed
him to govern without major crises.[138] The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably,[139] but
his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of Brasília, inaugurated in
1960.[140] Kubitschek's successor, Jânio Quadros, resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office.
[141]
His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political
opposition[142] and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military dictatorship.[143]

M41s along the Avenida Presidente Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, in

April 1968, during the military dictatorship
The new regime was intended to be transitory[144] but gradually closed in on itself and became a full
dictatorship with the promulgation of the Fifth Institutional Act in 1968.[145] Oppression was not
limited to those who resorted to guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional
opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society,[146][147] inside and outside the
country through the infamous "Operation Condor".[148][149] Like other brutal authoritarian regimes,
due to an economic boom, known as the "economic miracle", the regime reached a peak in
popularity in the early 1970s.[150]