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Brazil is a country studded with gorgeous beaches and
even more gorgeous people. It boasts of some of the most amazingly
beautiful landscapes, delicious foods, and impressive-looking (and
powerful) cocktails. For coffee lovers, Brazil is what Italy is for
pizza lovers, since the country is the greatest exporter of almost
everyone’s favorite breakfast drink. But coffee, beautiful women, and
drinks aside, Brazil has a wide gamut of experiences to offer the
adventurous traveler. For hundreds of years Brazilian culture has been
an exquisite mix of ethnic traditions and backgrounds fused with a
glorious blend of artistry. This has generated some of the most
recognizable feats of music and dances including the bossa nova, the
samba, and capoeira and more. The country is also widely known for being
a powerhouse in soccer; its national team has been victorious in the
FIFA World Cup a record five times: 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, and 2002.
We’re pretty sure you want to know more about this most popular and
visited South American country. So feel free to join us as we share with
you these some Fun Facts About Brazil: The Largest Country In South
America.
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The word “Brazil,” meaning “red like an ember,” comes from pau brasil (brazilwood),
a tree that once grew abundantly along the Brazilian coast that produced
a deep red dye. Brazilwood was valued by European traders who came from
the Portuguese coast in the sixteenth century to trade with the
Tupí-Guaraní Indians.
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Brazil is the sixth-largest country in
the world with a population of 200 million and the fifth-largest by
landmass with 5.35 million square miles. It is also the largest country
in South America.
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The Amazon rain forest is the world’s largest, containing one-fifth of
the world’s freshwater reserves and producing one-third of the earth’s
oxygen. About sixty percent of the Amazon lies in Brazil.
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Brazil is home to the most famous carnival in the world: the Rio de
Janeiro carnival, which is often cited as “the world’s largest party.” |
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Brazil’s national soccer team has been the most successful when it comes
to FIFA World Cup championships. They have won the tournament five
times: 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, and 2002.
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Brazil has more than four thousand airports, which makes it the second
country with the most airports in the world just behind the United
States.
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It is estimated that about four million slaves were taken from Africa to
Brazil during the slave trade, which was about forty-five percent of all
slaves brought to the Americas. In other words, and contrary to popular
belief, Brazil had more slaves than the United States.
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Brazil was the first country to ban tanning salons, as well as buying or
selling tanning equipment. This law was a result of the World Health
Organization classifying tanning beds as a Level 1 carcinogen, the same
as plutonium and cigarettes.
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The country’s most famous motto is “Ordem e
Progresso,” which means “order and progress.”
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Brazil’s national drink, which has become one of the most famous exotic
cocktails in most parts of the West in the last few years, is the
caipirinha, which is a sugarcane liquor called cachaça mixed in a glass
with sugar, ice, and crushed lime slices.
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In the 1980s Brazil became the first South American country to accept
women into its armed forces.
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Brazil has been the world’s largest exporter of coffee for 150 years. It
supplied around eighty percent of the world’s coffee in the 1920s but
that figure has currently fallen to around a third.
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Brazil was the only independent South American country to send ground
troops to fight in World War II, with over 25,000 soldiers. |