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The five regions

The twenty-six states and the Federal district of Brazil are divided into five geographic regions; the North, Northeast, Southeast, South and the Center West.

North
Rondenia, Acre, Amazonas, Roraima, Para, Amapa and Tocantins are the seven states in the North region of Brazil. The region has a total of 3,869,638 square kilometres and takes up 45.3% of Brazil's territory.
The tropical forest in the region is home to the planet's richest wildlife.

Northeast
Nine states make up the Northeast region. These states are Alagoas, Bahia, Ceara, Maranhao, Paraiba, Pernambuco, Piaui, Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe.
The Northeast covers 18.3% of the natural territory of Brazil with 1,561,178 square kilometres.

Southeast
Espirito Santo, Minas Gerais,Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are the only four states that make up the Southeast region. The region has a mass of only 927,286 square kilometres and takes up 10.9% of the natural territory.

South
The South has a temperate climate and only has three states; Parana, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. These three states cover only 6.8% of Brazil's territory with a total of 577,214 square kilometres.

Center West
Goias, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brasilia as well as the federal district are the four states in the Center West region of Brazil. The region takes up 1,612,077 square kilometres of Brazil and covers 18.9% of its natural territory.

Wildlife

The Amazon rainforest, the Atlantic forest and the Cerrado together hold the world's greatest plant and animal life. The Araucaria pine forest in the south grows under a temperate climate. A number of natural habitats are reflected upon by the rich wildlife and almost on a daily basis new species are being found. The total amount of plant and animal species in Brazil could reach four million as estimated by scientists.

Brazils natural heritage is threatened by cattle ranching, agriculture, logging, mining, oil and gas extraction and fire. In some areas of Brazil the wildlife is threatened by development. Highways have opened what used to be remote areas of the country for agriculture and settlement.

Hamster

The Environment

In the nineteen-eighties deforestation in the Amazon was an environmental problem in Brazil that attracted large amounts of international attention, however, sixty-six per cent of Brazils land is still covered by forests. Another environmental problem in Brazil is desertification which only got inernational attention since the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development which was held in Rio de Janeiro in nineteen-ninety two.
Soil erosion, siltation, sedimentation of streams and rivers and polution with pesticedes are serious problems in areas where agriculture is more intense and developed.
Environmental degradation was worsened in Brazil by the economic crisis in the nineteen-eighties because it led to overexploitation of naturtal resources, weakened environmental protection and stimulated settlement in fragile lands in rural and urban areas.
Policies in Brazil regarding the environment are usualy advanced, however, implimentation and enforcement of their environmental laws are no where near ideal. Since the nineteen-thirties, laws regarding water, wildlife and the forests have been in effect.

Climate

Equatorial, tropical, semiarid, highland tropical and subtropical are the five climatic regions within Brazil. Along the equator the temperature has a high average of above 25 degrees centigrade however the temperature in the temperate zones do not reach the summer extremes of 40 degrees centigrade.
Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia have moderate temperatures ranging between 15 degrees centigrade and 30 degrees centigrade. Rio de Janeiro, Recife and Salvador have warm climates even though they are on the coast at an altitude of about 1,000 metres above sea level, the average temperatures in these areas range from 23 degrees centigrade to 27 degrees centigrade, however, they have constant trade winds.
Most of Brazil sees moderate rainfall of between 1,000 and 1,500 millimetres per year. The majority of this rain falls in the summer months of December to April to the south of the equator.
Despite having an average rainfall of 2,000 to 3,000 millimetres per year, the Amazon region has a three to five month dry season, the timing of this dry season varies depending on location north or south of the equator.
The driest and hottest part of the country is in the northeast. The rainfall in this part of the country is scarce and there are cycles of severe droughts averaging seven years.

Political geography

Brazil takes up so much of South America that it has borders shared between every South American country except for Equador and Chile.
Brazil has one federal district and is divided into twenty-six other states, its most popular state is Sao Paulo and the capital is Brasilia.
Two of the largest cities in the world are found in Brazil, they are Sao paulo and Rio de Janeiro. These two cities are only two hundred and fifty miles away from each other.
The population of Sao Paulo has doubled in the last thirty-two years from eleven milion people. Both cities have large shanty towns which are always growing.
Brazils birth rate has decreased greatly in the last twenty years. On average in the eighties Brazilian women gave birth to 4.4 children each however in nineteen ninety five that average had droped to 2.1 children each.