Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the giant of the Latin American region. At 8.5 million square kilometres (3.2 million square miles) and with over 215 million people, Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest country by area and the sixth-most populous.

Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7.5 kilometres (4.6 miles). It borders all other countries in South America except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47% of the continent’s land area.

Brazil is home to a diversity of wildlife and natural environments in a variety of protected habitats. Amazon basin includes a vast tropical forest, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats.

Its landmass is far more extensive than all of Europe combined, or even the continental USA. It is just a small matter of being 35-times more extensive in area than the entire United Kingdom or 28-times larger than Italy.

Brazil is not really a country; it is more a continent, and you can’t explore continents in just a couple of days, so do give yourself the time to do Brazil justice when you do come visiting!

There are 23 metropolitan areas in the country with a population of over one million, of which São Paulo is the largest with 22 million residents, and Rio de Janeiro second with just over 13 million.

Latin America’s largest industrial and commercial centre, and often the gateway to Brazil through its international airport, is São Paulo. The city is known for being the economic engine that pulls the rest of the Brazilian economy behind it. São Paulo, you will also discover, is one of the world’s great cosmopolitan cities and well-respected due to its proximity to it’s somewhat more famous and infamous neighbour, Rio de Janeiro.