Brazil
From semanticweb.org
Brazil is located in South America. It is member of Mercosur and United Nations. Its most famous city is Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador was its first capital.
| Anthem: Brazilian National Anthem | |
| Capital | Brasília |
| Largest city | São Paulo |
| Official language(s) | Portuguese |
| Government | Federal republic |
| Area | |
| - Total | 8,514,877 km²8.51488e+12 m² 851,487,700 ha 3,287,612.389 miles² (5th) |
| 3,287,597 sq mi | |
| - Water (%) | 0.65 |
| Population | |
| - 2005 est. | 186,405,000 (countries by population|5th) |
| - Density | 22/km² (182nd) 57/sq mi |
| GDP (PPP) | 2005 estimate |
| - Total | $1.577 trillion (9th) |
| - Per capita | $8,584 (68th) |
| HDI (2003) | 0.792 (63rd) – medium |
| Currency | Brazilian real (BRL)
|
| Time zone | zone (UTC-2 to -5 (Official: -3)) |
| Internet TLD | .br |
| Calling code | +55
|
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil. It should be noticed that standard Brazilian Portuguese pronunciantion allows variant realisations of some phonemes, and that those variations do not necessarily imply any regional accent. European Portuguese pronunciation of the official name of Brazil is the largest and most populous country in South America, and fifth largest in the world in both area and population. Spanning a vast area between central South America and the Atlantic Ocean, it is the easternmost country of the Americas and it borders Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French department of French Guiana. In fact, it borders every South American nation except for Ecuador and Chile. The country's name is generally believed to be derived from pau-brasil (brazilwood), a tree highly valued by early colonists, though some credit the name to a mythical land mentioned in Europe during Middle Ages. Brazil is home to both extensive agricultural lands and rain forests. Exploring vast natural resources and a large labor pool, it is South America's leading economic power and a regional leader. Because it was a colony of Portugal, Portuguese is Brazil's official language. Brazil has the world's second largest Christian population (151 million, behind that of the United States), and also is the world's largest Roman Catholic-majority nation in terms of both number of adherents and land mass — a strong cultural legacy left behind by the Roman Catholic Portuguese colonists.
