Brazil Travel Guide

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Brazil is a seductive country with dazzling beaches, tropical islands and picturesque colonial towns. Its verdant rainforests boast an astounding array of wildlife, while its wildly energetic cities are home to a multitude of ethnic groups.

A country revered for its football prowess and rich musical traditions, Brazilians are a diverse bunch and full of the carnival spirit - as magnificently displayed at the annual festivities in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, where visitors can join the mayhem at samba-filled parties.

Brazil's landscape is as diverse as the people who inhabit it. Few tourists venture far from Brazil's spectacular coastline, but a trip into the interior reveals a different but equally captivating country. As well as the world's biggest rainforest in the Amazon, Brazil boasts many wilderness areas from the wetlands of the Pantanal, the canyons and caves of the Chapada Diamantina to the mountains of Minas Gerais.

Geography

Brazil covers almost half of the South American continent and it is bordered to the north, west and south by all South American countries except Chile and Ecuador; to the east is the Atlantic. The country is topographically quite flat and at no point do the highlands exceed 3,000m (10,000ft). Over 60% of the country is a plateau; the remainder consists of plains. The River Plate Basin (the confluence of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers, both of which have their sources in Brazil) in the far south is more varied, higher and less heavily forested. North of the Amazon are the Guiana Highlands, partly forested, partly stony desert. The Brazilian Highlands of the interior, between the Amazon and the rivers of the south, form a vast tableland, the Mato Grosso, from which rise mountains in the southwest that form a steep protective barrier from the coast called the Great Escarpment, breached by deeply cut river beds. The population is concentrated in the southeastern states of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The city of São Paulo has a population of over 12 million, while over 7 million people live in the city of Rio de Janeiro.