Area Total | 8,515,770 sq km |
Climate | mostly tropical, but temperate in south |
Natural Resources | bauxite, gold, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates, platinum, tin, rare earth elements, uranium, petroleum, hydropower, timber |
Imports | $153.2 billion (2017 est.) partners: China 18.1%, US 16.7%, Argentina 6.3%, Germany 6.1% (2017) |
Exports | $217.2 billion (2017 est.) partners: China 21.8%, US 12.5%, Argentina 8.1%, Netherlands 4.3% (2017) |
Government | federal presidential republic |
Capital | Brasilia |
Population | 208.8 million (July 2018 est.) |
Ethnicity | white 47.7%, mulatto (mixed white and black) 43.1%, black 7.6%, Asian 1.1%, indigenous 0.4% (2010 est.) |
Language | Portuguese (official and most widely spoken language); note: less common languages include Spanish (border areas and schools), German, Italian, Japanese, English, and a large number of minor Amerindian languages |
News about Brazil
- ‘We don’t want contact because you are bad’: loggers close in on uncontacted people in Peruvian Amazonby John Reid and Daniel Biasetto on July 5, 2025
Logging, drug trafficking and the climate crisis endanger the world’s largest isolated Indigenous group, on the border with BrazilIn 1999, Beatriz Huertas, then a young anthropologist, travelled deep into the Peruvian Amazon to investigate reports of uncontacted Indigenous peoples. Along the Las Piedras River, people in Monte Salvado, a Yine Indigenous […]
- Operations at Fernando de Noronha airport limited out of security concernson July 5, 2025
Brazil's National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac) Friday imposed new restrictions on Fernando de Noronha Airport following two incidents in a week where planes got stuck on the tarmac due to pavement issues.
- Brazil: mitigating factors for sexual crimes against women suppressedon July 5, 2025
An amendment to Brazil's Penal Code suppressing mitigating factors for crimes involving sexual violence against women came into force Friday after it was published in the Diário Oficial da União (Official Gazette - DOU), following its enactment by acting President Geraldo Alckmin. The measure also reduced the statute of limitations for these cases.
- Leaders of Russia and China snub Brics summit in sign group’s value may be waningby Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor on July 5, 2025
Rapid expansion of Brics has diluted its coherence as a body offering an ideological alternative to western capitalismRussia and China are not sending their leaders to a Brics summit starting in Brazil on Sunday in what may be a sign that the group’s recent expansion has reduced its ideological value to the two founding members.China’s 72-year-old […]
- Lula and Peña discuss espionage caseon July 4, 2025
Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Santiago Peña of Paraguay on Thursday discussed during the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) Summit in Buenos Aires the ongoing investigation into an intelligence operation carried out during the Jair Bolsonaro years to obtain confidential information from Paraguayan officials involved in negotiations on […]
- Woman shot at Brazilian consulate in Ciudad del Esteon July 4, 2025
Brazilian national Cássio Mussawer Montenegro opened fire Thursday at approximately 1.30 pm against Prima Felicia Benítez de Cantuni, a 78-year-old former judge who works as a legal advisor at the Brazilian Consulate in Ciudad del Este. During the attack at the diplomatic mission, the woman was shot in the left arm. Security personnel fired back. The […]
- Lula visits CFK at her Buenos Aires apartmenton July 3, 2025
Following his participation at the South American Common Market (Mercosur) Summit at the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid a visit to former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) at the apartment in the Coonstitución neighborhood where she is serving a six-year prison sentence for […]
- Lula visits former Argentinian president under house arrest in snub to Mileiby Tiago Rogero South America correspondent on July 3, 2025
Brazilian president meets Cristina Fernández de Kirchner at her flat in Buenos Aires after regional summitBrazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has eschewed a one-on-one meeting with the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, during a trip to Buenos Aires, instead opting to visit Milei’s political rival, former president Cristina Fernández de […]
- Brazil formally handed over Mercosur's rotating presidencyon July 3, 2025
Argentine President Javier Milei formally transferred the pro tempore presidency of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) to his Brazilian colleague Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the close of the bloc's summit in Buenos Aires.
- How the global trade in donkey skins threatens the lives of women and girls | Letterby Guardian Staff on July 3, 2025
This cruel, largely unregulated industry in the global south undermines UN goals of gender equality and poverty reduction, writes Marianne Steele of The Donkey SanctuaryRe your editorial (The Guardian view on China, Africa and disappearing donkeys: an unexpected crisis offers a clue to perils ahead, 25 June), last year, The Donkey Sanctuary revealed at […]
- Brazil's water authority finds 241 dams under safety riskson July 3, 2025
According to a dam safety report released this week by Brazil's water and sanitation authority, ANA, about the 2024–25 period, 241 of these structures need priority risk management, since their managers have not complied with all the national policy requirements.
- Bolsonaro to rest throughout July due to health issueson July 3, 2025
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has canceled all his public engagements for July due to recurring health issues, including constant hiccups and vomiting that make it difficult for him to speak and eat.
- Court allows CFK to receive Lula's visiton July 2, 2025
Buenos Aires Judge Jorge Gorini Wednesday acquiesced to a request from former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's (CFK) legal team and authorized former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to visit her Thursday at the apartment where she is serving a six-year sentence for corruption under house arrest.
- Group of Argentine Governors signs key environmental agreementon July 2, 2025
During the 5th World Circular Economy Summit and 1st International Climate Conference in Córdoba, governors from several Argentine provinces signed a landmark agreement ahead of COP30 (to be held in Brazil in 2025) to protect biodiversity, accelerate a shift to a circular economy, and ensure a fair and equitable energy transition.
- Brazil’s last asbestos miners are switching to rare earth minerals. Can they offer a brighter future?by Isabel Seta in Minaçu, Brazil. Photographs by José Cícero on July 1, 2025
The small city of Minaçu is hoping to challenge China’s dominance in servicing the global appetite for minerals key to the green energy transitionMinaçu, a small city in inland Brazil and home to the only asbestos mine in the Americas, is set to become the first operation outside Asia to produce four rare earths on a commercial scale – a group of […]