Discover the most interesting facts about Brazil that reveal everything from the terror of Snake Island to the uncontacted tribes still lurking deep within the heart of the Amazon.
Many Osama bin Laden-themed bars and restaurants have sprung up across the country since 9/11. The name doesn't carry the same stigma there that it does in the U.S. and the bars were named after the owners' resemblance to the terrorist.Mario Tama/Getty Images After the Civil War, thousands of men and women from the American South fled to Brazil where they would be known as Confederados. To this day, the town of Americana celebrates the Confederacy with an annual festival.João Leopoldo Padoveze/Flickr Brazil is the world's largest producer of coffee and is responsible for one-third of the world's supply. At the country's peak of exportation in the 1920s, 80 percent of the world's coffee came from Brazil.Ciat/Flickr "Snake Island" off the coast of Brazil is off limits to visitors because of the abundance of poisonous snakes. Scientists estimate that more than 4,000 snakes live on the 110-acre island and that a snake can be spotted every six square yards.Wikimedia Commons Prisoners can reduce their sentence by reading books. For every book you read and write a report on, you get four days shaved off your sentence, with a maximum of 12 books per year.Mario Tama/Getty Images Almost 500 street parties or "blocos" occur during Carnival with upwards of a million tourists pouring into the city for the festivities.Wikimedia Commons Brazil has recently surpassed the United States as the world's top consumer of crack cocaine.Wikimedia Commons Brazil was the first country in the Americas to import slaves, in 1501, and the last to abolish slavery, in 1888.Wikimedia Commons Iguazu Falls is 1.7 miles wide with 275 drops, the longest being 269 feet.Pixabay Sex changes are free under Brazil's public health system.Wikimedia Commons Many Nazis fled to Brazil at the end of World War II. There they operated child work camps and had plans to establish an Amazonian outpost.Wikimedia Commons About 25 percent of pharmaceuticals come from Amazon-based plants. However, less than five percent of the Amazon's plant life has ever even been tested by scientists.Geoff Gallice/Wikimedia Commons Rio's slums, known as “favelas," have become a popular tourist attraction. They've even attracted celebrities like Will Smith and Kim Kardashian.Wikimedia Commons The Amazon dumps the equivalent of 88 Olympic-size swimming pools into the Atlantic every second.Wikimedia Commons The Amazon River contains more water than the Nile, Yangtze, and Mississippi rivers combined.Pixabay Natal is the most dangerous city in the country and fourth most dangerous in the world with a murder rate of 102 homicides per 100,000 residents.Agência Brasil/Wikimedia Commons The original design for Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue featured Christ holding a cross in one hand and a globe in the other.Pixabay Its construction took nine years and used more than six million stone tiles.Wikimedia Commons Brazil became part of the Portuguese Empire in 1500 when Pedro Álvares Cabral mistakenly landed there while en route to India.Wikimedia Commons The capital city of Brasília was commissioned by the government and built from scratch in just four years starting in 1956.Wikimedia Commons More Catholics live in Brazil than anywhere else in the world and account for 50 percent of its population.Agência Brasil/Wikimedia Commons Sao Paulo is home to Latin America's largest community of Italian extraction and is home to more than 6,000 pizzerias.Wikimedia Commons Sao Paulo is home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan. About 1.6 million Brazilians are of Japanese descent.YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images The Itaipu Dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay is the largest producer of hydroelectricity in the world.Deni Williams/Flickr Less than two percent of sunlight passes through the Amazon Rainforest's canopy to the forest floor. Kevin Cure/Wikimedia Commons Only seven percent of the country is safe from deforestation thanks to government-designated refuges.Wikimedia Commons Brazil has a greater variety of wildlife than any other country on Earth. The country is home to 600 kinds of mammals and 100,000 types of insects.Wikimedia Commons The most popular surname in Brazil is "Silva," with over 5 million people claiming the name.Raul/Flickr On Brazil's flag, green represents forests, yellow represents mineral wealth, and the blue circle and stars symbolize the sky over Rio when it declared independence.Carifiesta/Flickr
31 Interesting Facts About Brazil From The Forests To The Favelas View GalleryFor everyone from nature lovers to cosmopolitan party animals, Brazil is one of the most captivating countries on Earth.
This sprawling South American nation features lush landscapes like the Amazon Rainforest, home to the largest array of animal and plant species found anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, Brazil's vibrant cities represent a colorful cultural melting pot of indigenous, European, African, and Asian influence.
Though most of the country's population lives in these urban areas along the country's coast, far more of Brazil's total land area is home to jungles and wetlands inhabited by millions of species (many of them still uncatalogued) as well as a few remote tribes (some of them still uncontacted).
These lands span a massive 2.1 million square miles but only seven percent of it all has government protection. So while these lands have given the country a robust agricultural and mining industry, decades of accompanying exploitation have taken a devastating toll.
Humans have destroyed about 85 percent of the country's coastal Atlantic Forest and the Amazon Rainforest itself disappears at a rate that can reach an astounding one acre every second. Such destruction displaces immeasurable wildlife, wreaks havoc on Earth's climate, and limits the possibility of discovering life-saving medicines found in the jungle's rich vegetation.
Aside from matters of the environment, Brazil's other large concern in recent decades has been crime. With economic hardship and political corruption in full force, Brazil's rates of both crime overall and homicide, as well as other violent crimes in particular, continue to rank among the highest in the world.
Still, the country's unique and diverse culture, rich history, and stunning natural beauty make it one of the most fascinating places in the world. Discover more for yourself in the gallery of interesting facts about Brazil above.
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