Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro, and the second-most-populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a beta global city, Rio de Janeiro is the sixth most populous city in the Americas. Part of the city has been designated as a World Heritage Site, named "Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea", on 1 July 2012 as a Cultural Landscape.
São Paulo is one of the 26 states of the Federative Republic of Brazil and is named after Saint Paul of Tarsus. A major industrial complex, the state has 21.9% of the Brazilian population and is responsible for 33.9% of Brazil's GDP. São Paulo also has the second-highest Human Development Index (HDI) and GDP per capita, the fourth-lowest infant mortality rate, the third-highest life expectancy, and the third-lowest rate of illiteracy among the federative units of Brazil. São Paulo alone is wealthier than Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia combined. São Paulo is also the world's twenty-eighth-most populous sub-national entity and the most populous sub-national entity in the Americas.
Amazonas ( ) is a state of Brazil, located in the North Region in the north-western corner of the country. It is the largest Brazilian state by area and the ninth-largest country subdivision in the world. It is the largest country subdivision in South America, being greater than the areas of Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay combined. Mostly located in the Southern Hemisphere, Amazonas is the third-largest country subdivision in the Southern Hemisphere after the Australian states of Western Australia and Queensland. Located entirely in the Western Hemisphere, it is the fourth-largest country subdivision in the Western Hemisphere after Greenland, Nunavut, and Alaska. If independent, Amazonas could become the sixteenth-largest country in the world, slightly larger than Mongolia. Neighbouring states are Roraima, Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Acre. It also borders the nations of Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. This includes the Departments of Amazonas, Vaupés and Guainía in Colombia, as well as the Amazonas state in Venezuela, and the Loreto Region in Peru.
Niterói is a municipality in the state of Rio de Janeiro, in the southeast region of Brazil. It lies across Guanabara Bay, facing the city of Rio de Janeiro and forming part of the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Area. It was the capital of Rio de Janeiro, as marked by its golden mural crown, from 1834 to 1894 and again from 1903 to 1975. It has an estimated population of 515,317 inhabitants (2020) and an area of 129.375 km2 (49.952 sq mi), making it the fifth most populous city in the state. It has the highest Human Development Index in the state and the seventh highest among Brazil's municipalities in 2010. Individually, it is the second municipality with the highest average monthly household income per capita in Brazil and appears in 13th place among the municipalities of the country according to social indicators related to education. The city has the nicknames of Cidade Sorriso.
Favela is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term, which means slum or ghetto, was first used in the Slum of Providência in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had lived under the favela trees in Bahia and had nowhere to live following the Canudos War. Some of the first settlements were called bairros africanos. Over the years, many former enslaved Africans moved in. Even before the first favela came into being, poor citizens were pushed away from the city and forced to live in the far suburbs.
Manaus is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Amazonas. It is the seventh-largest city in Brazil, with an estimated 2020 population of 2,219,580 distributed over a land area of about 11,401 km2 (4,402 sq mi). Located at the east centre of the state, the city is the centre of the Manaus metropolitan area and the largest metropolitan area in the North Region of Brazil by urban landmass. It is situated near the confluence of the Negro and Amazon rivers. It is one of the two cities in the Amazon Rainforest with a population of over 1 million people, alongside Belém.
Lúcio Marçal Ferreira Ribeiro Lima Costa was a Brazilian architect and urban planner, best known for his plan for Brasília.
Franca is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The city is located in the northeastern portion of the state, distant 401 km from the state capital, and 676 km from Brasilia. It covers a total area of 605,679 km² of which 86,92 km² comprises the urban area. As of the 2021 Census, the city's population was 358,539.
Brazil is geopolitically divided into five regions, by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, which are formed by the federative units of Brazil. Although officially recognized, the division is merely academic, considering geographic, social and economic factors, among others, and has no political effects other than orientating Federal-level government programs. Under the state level, they are further divided into intermediate regions and even further into immediate regions.
The Brazil socio-geographic division is a slightly different division than the Brazilian Division by Regions. It separates the country into three different and distinctive regions:
Cidade dos Homens is a Brazilian television show created by Kátia Lund and Fernando Meirelles, the directors of the film City of God. The series was watched by 35 million viewers in Brazil and was released internationally on DVD shortly after the film. In 2007, a feature-length film based on the series was released.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Brazil:
Brasília, the capital city of Brazil located in the nation’s Federal District, has a history beginning in the colonial era and interactions with the native inhabitants of the area. The first propositions of relocating Brazil's capital began in the late 18th century, and after various plans and attempts at settlement, the city was inaugurated on 21 April 1960 following a four year construction period. Since its inauguration, the city has faced economic, social and political challenges and has seen vast population growth and spreading urbanisation. Since the end of the 20th century, however, Brasília has become an important cultural hub through contributions of music, art and literature.
The 2014 FIFA World Cup tournament in Brazil cost US$11.6 billion, and was the most expensive World Cup at the time. It was surpassed by the 2018 FIFA World Cup, however, which cost an estimated $14.2 billion. FIFA spent an estimated $2 billion on the 2014 finals, with its greatest single expense $576 million in prize money. Other expenditures were largely for stadium renovation and other infrastructure projects, since Brazil undertook substantial construction to facilitate hosting the tournament.
Twelve venues in twelve Brazilian cities were selected for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The cities also housed the 32 teams and fan-zones for spectators without tickets for the stations. Around 3 million tickets were put on sale of which most were sold out in a day. Eighteen locations were presented as potential host cities with the twelve successful candidates announced on 31 May 2009: Belém, Campo Grande, Florianópolis, Goiânia and Rio Branco were rejected, while Maceió had already withdrawn in January 2009.
The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time when Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil has resulted in 37,721,749 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 704,659 deaths. The virus was confirmed to have spread to Brazil on 25 February 2020, when a man from São Paulo who had traveled to Italy tested positive for the virus. The disease had spread to every federative unit of Brazil by 21 March. On 19 June 2020, the country reported its one millionth case and nearly 49,000 reported deaths. One estimate of under-reporting was 22.62% of total reported COVID-19 mortality in 2020.
Squatting in Brazil is the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. After attempting to eradicate slums in the 1960s and 1970s, local governments transitioned to a policy of toleration. Cities such as Recife, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have large informal settlements known as favelas. A more recent phenomenon is the occupation of buildings in city centres by organised groups. In rural areas across the country, the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) arranges large land occupations.
