Check out these facts about Brazil and take advantage of a chance to introduce your family to a country with which they may not be very familiar.

The official name of the country is the Federative Republic of Brazil

What cities are hosting World Cup games?

Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Cuiaba, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Manaus, Natal, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janero, Salvador, and Sao Paulo. You can read more about each of them in this Travel Channel article. This is the second time Brazil has hosted the World Cup. It first hosted in 1950.

The capital of Brazil is Brasilia. It’s a new city – it was built between 1956 an 1960  Prior to then, Rio was the capital.

The largest city in Brazil is Sao Paulo, which has a population of 10.9 million people.

What is its population?

Brazil has a population of approximately 194 million people  It is the fifth largest country in the world when measuring by both population and land area.

Less than 1% of the population is indigenous and more than half of the population is of primarily European origin.

What does the Brazilian flag symbolize?

There are 27 stars, one for each state and the federal district – they are arranged to look how the night sky looks over Brazil The white band has the motto Ordem E Progresso, which means Order and Progress.  Just like the American flag, the number of stars has been expanded as more states have been added to the country. It was first approved in 1889 with 21 stars and the version with 27 stars became official in 1992.

The green original represented the House of Braganza of Pedro I, the first Emperor of Brazil but now symbolizes the country’s forests and the yellow signifies its mineral wealth.

Brazil is big, but just how big?

The country of Brazil covers 46% of the continent of South America. The country has three time zones.

That means it has several neighbors.

Brazil shares a border with every country in South America except Chile and Ecuador.

It also has more than 4,500 miles of coast line, many of which feature amazing beaches. TripAdvisor recently named Baia do Sancho the best beach in the world.

Discovery

Pedro Alvares Cabral, a Portuguese explorer, is considered to have discovered the country when he sailed into what is now Bahia in April 1500.

Languages

You may know that Portuguese is the official language Brazil, and it is the only South American country that can say that. Portugese is far from the only language spoken there. In fact, you can hear more than 180 languages.

Independence

Brazil became independent from Portgual on September 7, 1822.

It became a democracy in 1985. Brazil’s current President, Dilma Rousseff, was inaugurated on January 1, 2011.

Amazon

The Amazon River the world’s second longest river (after the Nile) but it is is the largest by volume of water discharged.  The river can measure up to 30 miles wide during the rainy season.

The Amazon runs through a vast expanse of rain forest, which helps explain why there are more species of monkeys living in Brazil than in any other nation. Deforestation is a huge problem in the country.

Crops

The country was largely agrarian until the 1960s and still produces a quarter of the world’s coffee and a large portion of the world’s sugar cane.

Carnival

Rio de Janero’s famous Carnival, which is known around the world as being an incredible party held before Lent each year, attracts around 2 million revelers each day

Helpful Dolphins

In the town of Laguna, dolphins help the fisherman by herding fish towards their nets. The local report that the dolphins have been helping the fishermen for generations.

Money

The currency in Brazil is called the real and it is written R$.

Permission to Land

Brazil has a lot of airports – 4,000 of them in fact. The only country to have more airports is the United States.

Christ the Redeemer

One of Brazil’s most well-known landmarks is the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janero. It is the world’s tallest religious statue and in 2007, it was included in the New Seven Wonders of the World list. It was officially presented to the public in 1932.

Sources: The Telegraph, National Geographic, The CIA’s World Factbook, Science Kids, FIFA and Travel Advisor Tips

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