Brazil is situated on the South American continent. It is washed by the Atlantic Ocean from the east. It borders on French Guiana, Surinam, Guyana, Venezuela in the north; on Columbia, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina in the west and on Uruguay in the south. Brazil occupies almost half of South America. The area of the country is 8 511 965 km2. The population of the country is 150 368 000.
The capital of the country is Brasilia. The population of the capital with suburbs is over 1 568 000 people. The other big cities of Brazil are Sâo Paulo 16 832 000; Rio de Janeiro 11 141 000; Belo Horizonte 3 446 000. The best industrial cities are Sâo Paulo and Rio de Janeiro as well as some of the best Brazil’s farmland and mineral-producing areas. Official language of the country is Portuguese. For exporting abroad the country produces the following goods: coffee, soy beans, fruit, iron, and steel, and vehicles. Under the rule of its federal government the country’s GNP is 2550 US dollars per capita.
The surface of Brazil has three main regions. The Amazon River basin in the north contains lowland, jungle and highlands, and the world’s biggest rainforest with over 40 000 plant varieties known. In the northeast is fertile costal plain. And in the east and south plateaus and hills are known for their poor soil. The highest point of the country Neblina is in the northwest close to the border with Venezuela. It is 3 014 m high. There are many rivers. Most of them are the arms of the Amazon which is the biggest in the country and one of the biggest rivers in the world. The Amazon and other Brazilian rivers flow into the Atlantic Ocean. One of the most amazing things in Brazil are the Igacu Falls on the border with Argentina. Every 24 hours with the raw of a starting space rocket about 1 billion tons of the Parana waters fall down from the 72 metres height. The width of the Falls is 4 kilometres. It is almost impossible to come close to the Falls because of the mighty air wave.
