![National seal](https://web.archive.org/web/20160411113931im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/National_Seal_of_Brazil_%28color%29.svg/45px-National_Seal_of_Brazil_%28color%29.svg.png) Welcome to the Brazil Portal ![National seal](https://web.archive.org/web/20160411113931im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/National_Seal_of_Brazil_%28color%29.svg/45px-National_Seal_of_Brazil_%28color%29.svg.png)
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil), is the largest and most populous country in South America, and the fifth largest in the world in both area and population. Its territory covers 8,514,876.599 km² between central South America and the Atlantic Ocean and it is the easternmost country of the Americas. It borders Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana and the département of French Guiana to the north, Uruguay to the south, Argentina and Paraguay to the southwest, Bolivia and Peru to the west, and Colombia to the northwest. The only South American countries not bordered by Brazil are Ecuador and Chile.
The Brazilian coastline covers 7,367km (4,655 mi) along the Atlantic ocean. Numerous archipelagos are part of the Brazilian territory, such as Penedos de São Pedro e São Paulo, Fernando de Noronha, Trindade e Martim Vaz and Atol das Rocas. Tropical climate is predominant. In the south of the country, subtropical climate prevails. Brazil is traversed by the Equator and Tropic of Capricorn lines. It is home to varied fauna and flora and extensive natural resources.
The Brazilian population tends to concentrate along the coastline in large urban centers. While Brazil has one of the largest populations in the world, population density is low and the inner continental land has large demographical empty spaces. It is a multiracial country composed of European, Amerindian, African and Asian elements, more often combined in the same individual than separated into different communities. The official language is Portuguese, and it is the only Portuguese-speaking country in all the Americas. Catholicism is the predominant religion, though Protestant communities have experienced significant growth in the last decades. Brazil has the largest Roman Catholic population in the world.
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The Amazon River of South America is the largest river in the world by volume, with a total river flow greater than the next top ten largest rivers flowing into the ocean combined. The Amazon, which has the largest drainage basin in the world, accounts for approximately one fifth of the world's total river flow. Because of its vast dimensions, it is sometimes called The River Sea. The first bridge in the Amazon river system (over the Rio Negro) opened on 10 October 2010 near Manaus, Brazil.
This is only partly because of its huge dimensions—for most of its length the Amazon is not so wide that a modern bridge could not span it—but also because, for most of its length, the river flows through tropical rainforest, where there are few cities and even fewer roads. While the Amazon is clearly the largest river in the world by most measures, the current consensus within the geographic community holds that the Amazon is the second longest river, just slightly shorter than the Nile. However, some scientists, particularly from Brazil and Peru, dispute this.
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Rio Grande do Norte is one of the states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the edge of the South American continent. Because of its geographic position, Rio Grande do Norte has a strategic importance. It is the land of the folklorist Câmara Cascudo and is second in the world having the purest air, second only to Antarctica, according to NASA.
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I'm like Sergeant Schultz, I know nothing. We are trying to share ideas around the world. We don't just come up with a great idea in Brazil and ignore it in the rest of the world.
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Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira (born June 26, 1942), better known as Gilberto Gil ( Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒiwˈbɛʁtu ˈʒiw]), is a Brazilian singer, guitarist, and songwriter, known for both his musical innovation and his political commitment. Since 2003, he has been serving as his country's Minister of Culture in the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Gil began playing music as a child and was still a teenager when he joined his first band. He started out as a bossa nova musician, eventually writing songs that reflected a new focus on political awareness and social activism. He was a key figure in the Música Popular Brasileira and Tropicalismo movements of the 1960s, alongside artists such as longtime collaborator Caetano Veloso. The Brazilian military regime that took power in 1964 saw both Gil and Veloso as a threat, and the two were held for nine months in 1969 before they were told to leave the country. Gil moved to London, but returned to the Brazilian state of Bahia in 1972 and continued his musical career, as well as working as a politician and environmental advocate. Gil's musical style incorporates an eclectic range of influences, including rock, Brazilian genres including samba and forró, African music, and reggae.
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Sobradinho Reservoir is both a dam and an artificial lake located in the north of the Brazilian state of Bahia and a city with the same name located near the lake. The lake is about 320 km long, with a surface of 4,214 square kilometers and a storage capacity of 34.1 cubic kilometers at its nominal elevation of 392.50 meters, making it the 12th-largest artificial lake in the world.
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