With 500 years of Official History, Brazil covers an area in excess of 8.5 millions km² with a population of 160 million people , which 70 million are economically active. In 1995 the nation's income per capita per annum was US$ 4000 and its Gross National Product was, in 1998, greater than US$ 800 billions making it the largest economy of Latin America and the eighth in the world.
Brazil can be divided into 5 geographic regions:
South: states of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Santa Catarina (SC) and Paraná (PR);
Southeast: states of São Paulo (SP), Minas Gerais (MG), Rio de Janeiro (RJ) and Espírito Santo (ES);
Center-West: states of Distrito Federal (DF), Goiás (GO), Mato Grosso do Sul (MS) and Mato Grosso (MT);
North: states of Tocantins (TO), Amazonas (AM), Pará (PA), Amapá (AP), Roraima (RR), Rondônia (RO) and Acre (AC);
Northeast: Bahia (BA), Sergipe (SE), Alagoas (AL), Pernambuco (PE), Paraíba (PB), RioGrande do Norte (RN), Ceará (CE), Piauí (PI) and Maranhão (MA).
The 6275 km long Amazon River in the world's largest river. and the Amazon Rain Forest contains 30 % of the world's remaining forests.
The richness and diversity of Brazil's fauna is astounding, and the country ranks first in the world for numbers of species of primates, amphibians and plants; third for bird species; and fourth for species of butterflies and reptiles. However, many species are under threat because of the continued depletion of rainforests, desertification in the northeast, poaching in the Pantanal Region and coastal pollution.