Difference between revisions of "The land of Brazil"

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'''The land of [[Brazil]]'''
The Brazilian landscape is immense and complex, with interspersed rivers, wetlands, mountains, and plateaus adjoining other major features and traversing the boundaries of states and regions.
'''Geographic regions'''
The Brazilian government has grouped the country’s states into five large geographic and statistical units called the Major Regions (Grandes Regiões): North (Norte), Northeast (Nordeste), Central-West (Centro-Oeste), Southeast (Sudeste), and South (Sul). The tropical North—comprising the states of Acre, Rondônia, Amazonas, Pará, Tocantins, Roraima, and Amapá—covers more than two-fifths of Brazilian territory and includes the largest portion of Amazon rainforest and parts of the Guiana and Brazilian highlands; however, the region accounts for a limited proportion of the nation’s population and economic output.
The Northeast, which experiences some of the nation’s driest and hottest conditions, has nearly one-fifth of Brazil’s land area and more than one-fourth of the population. It contains the states of Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Alagoas, Sergipe, Bahia, and Pernambuco, the latter including the island of Fernando de Noronha, some 225 miles (360 km) off the Atlantic coast. The region’s oldest cities date from the 16th century, when the Portuguese first established sugarcane plantations there. The Northeast accounts for one-fifth of the nation’s agricultural production, but the industrial and service sectors lag far behind those of the Southeast and South, and the unemployment rate remains high.
The Southeast covers only one-tenth of Brazil’s territory but has two-fifths of its population and the greatest concentration of industrial and agricultural production in the nation. The region includes São Paulo state, which is the nation’s economic and demographic heartland, landlocked Minas Gerais, whose very name (meaning “Extensive Mines”) testifies to great mineral wealth, and the populous coastal states of Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro. The city of Rio de Janeiro, the national capital from 1763 to 1960, remains Brazil’s main cultural and tourist centre.
The South, which stretches below the Tropic of Capricorn, includes the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul. It occupies an area nearly as large as the isle of Britain but is the smallest of Brazil’s regions. Its diversified economy includes strong manufacturing, agriculture, and service sectors. The South has about one-seventh of the nation’s population, including many people of European ancestry, particularly from Germany and Italy. The South’s tourist trade partly depends on the spectacular Iguaçu Falls, at the Argentine border.
The Central-West consists of the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso, and Mato Grosso do Sul, as well as the Federal District, in which Brasília is located. The region covers roughly one-fourth of Brazil, including forested valleys, semiarid highlands, and vast wetlands. A small proportion of the nation’s population lives there, but an increasing number of settlers have been moving into the region and extending its agricultural frontiers.
'''Relief'''
Brazil is a predominantly tropical country famous for its extensive Amazon lowlands; however, highlands cover most of the national territory. Brazil’s physical features can be grouped into five main physiographic divisions: the Guiana Highlands in the North, the Amazon lowlands, the Pantanal in the Central-West, the Brazilian Highlands (including the extensive coastal ranges), and the coastal lowlands.
'''GUIANA HIGHLANDS'''
Brazil shares the rugged Guiana Highlands with Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. Forested mesas and mountain ranges, scenic waterfalls, and white-water rivers characterize the area. The highest point in Brazil is Neblina Peak, which reaches 9,888 feet (3,014 metres) along the Venezuelan border in the Serra do Imeri. The Serra da Pacaraima, farther east, rises to 9,094 feet (2,772 metres) at Mount Roraima, where the borders of Venezuela, Guyana, and Brazil meet. The less rugged Acaraí and Tumuc-Humac (Tumucumaque) ranges border on the Guianas.
'''AMAZON LOWLANDS'''
The Amazon lowlands are widest along the eastern base of the Andes. They narrow toward the east until, downstream of Manaus, only a narrow ribbon of annually flooded plains (várzeas) separates the Guiana Highlands to the north from the Brazilian Highlands to the south. The várzeas fan out again as the watercourse approaches the Atlantic, but no delta extends into the ocean. The basin’s most widespread topographical features are gently undulating hills called terra firme (“solid ground”), composed of layers of alluvial soil that were deposited as much as 2.5 million years ago and subsequently uplifted to positions above flood level. Shallow oxbow lakes and wetlands are found throughout the region.
'''PANTANAL'''
The immense Pantanal, an extension of the Gran Chaco plain, is a region of swamps and marshes in northwestern Mato Grosso do Sul and southern Mato Grosso states and, to a lesser extent, in northern Paraguay and eastern Bolivia; it is one of the largest freshwater wetlands in the world, covering some 54,000 square miles (140,000 square km). The Pantanal is dissected by the effluents of the upper Paraguay River, which overflows its banks during the rainy season, inundating all but the tops of scattered levees and low hills.
'''BRAZILIAN HIGHLANDS'''
The Brazilian Highlands make up more than half of the country’s landmass and are the main source of the nation’s abundant mineral wealth. In Brazil the highlands are often called the Planalto Central (Central Highlands, or Central Plateau), but that term may be limited to the part of the highlands around Brasília and Goiás. The rugged highlands include steep cliffs, flat-topped plateaus, ravines, rolling hills, and rock outcrops; however, the region’s maximum elevations are below 10,000 feet (3,000 metres). Its highest elevations are in two areas: the first along a series of ridges less than 300 miles (500 km) from the eastern coast, and the second in the environs of Brasília and the border dividing Bahia state from Tocantins and Goiás. The highlands to the north and west of Goiás extend for some 600 miles (1,000 km) until they descend into the Amazon lowlands. A massive escarpment marks the eastern edge of the Brazilian Highlands, extending along the coast for some 1,600 miles (2,600 km) and forming mountain ranges that average approximately 2,600 feet (800 metres) in elevation, with many individual peaks rising above 7,000 feet (about 2,100 metres).
The major ranges of the northeastern highlands include the Serra Grande, which skirts the Piauí-Ceará border; the Araripe Upland (Chapado Araripe) in Pernambuco state; and the Diamantina Upland (Chapada Diamantina) in Bahia. The Serra do Espinhaço extends from central Minas Gerais into southern Bahia, where Almas Peak reaches 6,070 feet (1,850 metres). The Serra Geral de Goiás separates the states of Goiás and Tocantins to the west from Bahia to the east. Goiás state also includes some of the more elevated parts of the Planalto Central, the Serra dos Pirineus, and the Serra Dourada. The ranges and plateaus farther north and west, which are neither as elevated nor as deeply dissected as their eastern counterparts, include the mineral-rich Serra dos Carajás in eastern Pará state, the Serra do Cachimbo, mainly in southwestern Pará, and the Parecis Upland (Chapada dos Parecis), which stretches between Rondônia and Mato Grosso. Other highland regions of Mato Grosso state are sometimes collectively designated the Mato Grosso Plateau.
The Serra do Mar, averaging some 3,000 feet (1,000 metres) above sea level, is the largest segment of the escarpment along the Atlantic coast. The range extends from southeastern Minas Gerais to eastern Paraná; in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro, where the range is also known as the Serra dos Orgãos, it presents an almost sheer face to the sea and creates the outcrops of Sugar Loaf (Pão de Açúcar) and Gávea and a string of small islands. The Serra da Mantiqueira, located just north of the Serra do Mar but still somewhat near the coast, marches southward from the Serra do Espinhaço; in southern Minas Gerais the Mantiqueira range reaches 9,143 feet (2,787 metres) at Agulhas Negras Peak on the Rio de Janeiro state border and 9,482 feet (2,890 metres) at Bandeira Peak, near the Serra dos Aimorés, which extends along the Minas Gerais–Espírito Santo border. A series of ridges southwest of the Serra do Mar is known as the Serra de Botucatu in São Paulo state and the Serra Geral from Paraná southward. The Iguaçu River in southwestern Paraná tumbles over a steep rim of diabase rock to form the spectacular Iguaçu Falls. Guaíra Falls on the Paraná River were a similar attraction until 1982, when the huge hydroelectric dam at Itaipú was completed and they were submerged.
'''COASTAL LOWLANDS'''
The Atlantic lowlands, which comprise only a tiny part of Brazil’s territory, range up to 125 miles (200 km) wide in the North but become narrower in the Northeast and disappear in parts of the Southeast. Nevertheless, their features are widely varied, including level floodplains, swamps, lagoons, sand dunes, and long stretches of white sandy beaches that are protected in some areas by coral reefs and barrier islands. Various deep harbours exist where the rocky slopes of the coastal ranges plunge directly into the ocean, such as at Guanabara Bay, where Rio de Janeiro and Niterói are located, and All Saints Bay, the site of Salvador; cities in these locations occupy small valleys or considerably narrow strips of land, but many poorer neighbourhoods occupy perilously steep ridges on the periphery. The coastal plain widens again in the South at the site of Patos Lagoon, one of the continent’s largest lagoons, and Mirím Lagoon, along the Uruguayan border.
'''Drainage'''
Brazil is drained by the Amazon River, which is the centrepiece of the most extensive river system in the world, and by other systems that are notable in their own right—the Tocantins-Araguaia in the north, the Paraguay-Paraná-Plata in the south, and the São Francisco in the east and northeast. Numerous smaller rivers and streams drain directly eastward to the Atlantic from the Brazilian interior, but most are short, have steep gradients, and are not impounded for hydroelectric developments or suitable for waterborne traffic. The more navigable rivers of this group are the Paranaíba, between the states of Piauí and Maranhão, and the Jacuí in Rio Grande do Sul.
The Amazon River rises from a point in the Peruvian Andes within 100 miles (160 km) of the Pacific Ocean, whence its course meanders some 4,000 miles (6,400 km) to the Atlantic. There it contributes as much as one-fifth of all of the Earth’s surface runoff from the continents to the sea. The river’s great tributaries include the Juruá, Purus, Madeira, Tapajós, and Xingu rivers on the southern side and the Negro River on the northern side (see photograph). Six tributaries exceed 1,000 miles (1,600 km) in length, and some carry more water individually than does North America’s Mississippi River, so that the Amazon’s annual discharge to the Atlantic is more than 10 times that of the Mississippi. Ships of considerable size navigate upstream to Manaus, and smaller vessels can reach Iquitos in eastern Peru, some 2,300 miles (3,700 km) from the sea. However, shipping is limited on the Amazonian tributaries, all of which are interrupted by falls and rapids where they descend from the highlands; none of the main effluents have been harnessed to produce hydroelectric power.
The Paraguay-Paraná-Plata is the second of the great river systems of Brazil; it also drains large parts of Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay. In Brazil the system rises in the highlands of Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Minas Gerais states and flows southward in two sections—the Paraguay and Paraná (or Alto Paraná, as it is sometimes called before the two rivers join). The upper reaches of the Paraguay flow through the Pantanal and form part of the border between Brazil and Paraguay. The Alto Paraná collects numerous tributaries from southeastern Brazil, including the Paranaíba (not to be confused with the Paranaíba of the Northeast), Grande, Tietê, and Paranapanema. The Alto Paraná and Paraguay rivers unite southwest of Brazil, on the Argentina-Paraguay border, to form the Paraná proper, which eventually reaches the sea through the Río de la Plata estuary. Brazil’s two southernmost states are drained through the Uruguay River, which also flows into the Río de la Plata. In Brazil these rivers were navigable only for short stretches until they were dredged in the 1990s. Brazilians have built hydroelectric complexes and reservoirs on many tributaries of the system, including the Iguaçu, Paranapanema, Tietê, and Grande.
The Tocantins-Araguaia river system rises in the highlands of Goiás and Mato Grosso states and discharges into the Pará River just south of the Amazon delta. The Tocantins, though popularly regarded as a tributary of the Amazon, is technically a separate system draining some 314,200 square miles (813,700 square km)—nearly one-tenth of Brazil’s national territory. The middle course of the Araguaia River, in a marshland some 220 miles (350 km) northwest of Brasília, temporarily divides into western and eastern branches to form the vast Bananal Island. The Araguaia joins the Tocantins after flowing northward another 600 miles (1,000 km). In the mid-1980s the Tucuruí Dam was built on the lower Tocantins, some 120 miles (200 km) southwest of Belém, in order to generate hydroelectric power for much of Pará and Maranhão as well as for the nearby Carajás mining complex.
The São Francisco River basin covers more than 249,000 square miles (645,000 square km) in eastern Brazil. The river rises in the highlands of western Minas Gerais and southern Goiás and flows more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) northward before it turns eastward to the Atlantic. Shallow-draft riverboats ply the waters between Pirapora in Minas Gerais and Juàzeiro in Bahia, at the eastern end of the Sobradinho Reservoir. Hydroelectric installations harness the river’s energy near Paulo Afonso Falls. and at Juàzeiro. Only the watercourse below the falls is navigable for oceangoing ships.
'''Climate'''
Brazil has a humid tropical and subtropical climate except for a drier area in the Northeast, sometimes called the drought quadrilateral or drought polygon, that extends from northern Bahia to the coast between Natal and São Luís; that zone receives about 15–30 inches (375–750 mm) of precipitation a year. Much of Brazil receives 40–70 inches (1,000–1,800 mm) annually, but precipitation often is much heavier in parts of the Amazon basin and the sea-facing rim of the Serra do Mar.
The central parts of the Brazilian Highlands receive most of their precipitation during the summer months (November to April), often in the form of torrential downpours. Storms and floods may strike the Northeast at that time, depending on weather patterns, but the region may also experience prolonged drought. These shifting conditions make life difficult in the sertão, the backlands of the Northeast, and are a major cause for migration out of the region. Summer temperatures are largely uniform. In January most of the lowlands average roughly 79 °F (26 °C), and the highlands are a few degrees cooler, depending on elevation. The coast of Rio Grande do Sul is also somewhat cooler, averaging around 73 °F (23 °C), whereas the Northeast backland’s drought quadrilateral, the hottest region of the country, averages some 84 °F (29 °C), with daytime temperatures exceeding 100 °F (38 °C). However, the Northeast’s low humidity makes the heat less oppressive than in Rio de Janeiro.
In the winter (May to October) the Brazilian Highlands are generally dry, and snow falls in only a few of the southernmost states. Regular frosts accompany winter air patterns from the south, and near-freezing temperatures can reach as far north as São Paulo. Cool, rainy weather may extend along the coast as far north as Recife and, in the west, to the Pantanal. Cool air occasionally spills over from the Paraguay lowlands into the western Amazon basin and may travel as far north as the Guyana border. Winter temperatures in the Amazon lowlands remain virtually unchanged from those of the summer months, but temperatures in the drought quadrilateral drop to about 79 °F (26 °C). Temperatures in the Brazilian Highlands average about 68 °F (20 °C) in the central and northern regions and are cooler toward the south: Curitiba, at an elevation of some 3,000 feet (900 metres), averages 57 °F (14 °C) in June and July. During those months the mean temperature at Porto Alegre is the same, but Rio de Janeiro is much hotter, averaging 73 °F (23 °C), partly because of the warm currents that bathe the entire Brazilian coast.
'''Soils'''
Brazil’s soils form a vast and intermixed pattern. A large band of nutrient-rich, deep reddish purple soil (terra roxa) lies in the Southeast and South between central Rio Grande do Sul and southern Minas Gerais, including large areas of Paraná and São Paulo states. That region contains Brazil’s most heavily farmed lands; however, terra roxa is not necessarily more productive than soils in other regions of the country. Soils in the Northeast also contain many nutrients, but agriculture is limited there because few fields are irrigated. Heavy rainfall has intensely leached many soils, leaving them with few nutrients but with an overabundance of insoluble iron and aluminum silicates. Laterites (soils dominated by iron oxides) and other infertile soils are especially prevalent in the Brazilian Highlands, where they can reach depths of as much as 90 feet (27 metres).
Amazonian soils are also leached but not as deeply. In the terra firme of the rainforest, dead organic matter quickly decays and is recycled. However, once the overlying forest canopy is destroyed—e.g., by clear-cutting or burning—that regenerative cycle is interrupted, and many nutrients and organic matter are lost. More fertile Amazonian soils, interspersed between the zones of leached soil, include várzea alluvial deposits and terra preta dos indios (“black earth of the Indians”), which has developed throughout Amazonia on the sites of prehistoric settlements.
'''Plant and animal life'''
HIGHLANDS, COASTAL REGIONS, AND THE PANTANAL
Most of the original ecosystems of the eastern highlands have been destroyed, including the once luxuriant hardwood forests that dominated the eastern seaboard and the formerly magnificent Paraná pine (Araucaria) forests that covered the southern plateaus. Monkeys, parrots, and other formerly common wildlife are now found only in zoos, private menageries, or small patches of forest that still support the original flora. Saltworks, marinas, and condominiums have replaced the former coastal waterways and swamps that once teemed with waterfowl and alligators.
The Brazilian savannas in the semiarid Northeast have no massive herds of wild animals like their African counterparts. Jaguars and ocelots once inhabited the forest edges, but they have been extensively hunted by ranchers and are now endangered. The plant life varies considerably from coarse bunchgrasses to thorny, gnarled woods known as caatinga, the name derived from an Indian term meaning “white forest”; most caatinga are stunted, widely spaced, and intermingled with cacti. Woodlands known as agreste are found in slightly more humid areas. Most areas of agreste are located near the São Francisco River and on elevated slopes, where some remaining moisture in the air is wrung from the trade winds. Thorny trees in those regions may attain heights of up to 30 feet (9 metres) and form barriers with their interlocking branches that even leather-clad vaqueiros (“cowboys”) cannot penetrate. Artificial pastures and grain fields have largely replaced the native grasslands of Rio Grande do Sul.
The Pantanal’s vast sloughs and watercourses support an abundance of flora and fauna, including the giant pirarucu, a fish that is herded into enclosures like underwater cattle pens until needed for food. Aquatic birds include ibis, herons, ducks, and migratory geese. There are numerous lizards and snakes, including deadly fer-de-lance (jararacas) and rattlesnakes. Among the larger mammals are armadillos and anteaters, which prey on ants and termites, whose nests may stand more than 6 feet (2 metres) high. Rheas (the South American relative of the ostrich), roadrunners (siriemas), and a variety of game birds, notably quail and partridge, are ubiquitous to the Pantanal’s higher ground and to the savannas of central Brazil.
'''AMAZONIA'''
The Amazon basin has the greatest variety of plant species on Earth and an abundance of animal life, in contrast to the scrublands that border it to the south and east. The Amazonian region includes vast areas of rainforest, widely dispersed grasslands, and mangrove swamps in the tidal flats of the delta. Individual plants of most species tend to be widely dispersed, so that blights and other natural threats cause them only limited damage. A typical acre (0.4 hectare) of Amazonian forest may contain 250 or more tree species (in contrast, an acre of woods in the northeastern United States might have only a dozen species).
The crowns of giant Amazonian trees form a virtually closed canopy above several lower canopy layers, all of which combine to allow no more than 10 percent of the sun’s rays to reach the ground below. As a result, more plant and animal life is found in the canopy layers than on the ground. The tallest trees may rise to 150–200 feet (45–60 metres) and are festooned with a wide variety of epiphytes, bromeliads, and lianas, while their branches teem with animal life, including insects, snakes, tree frogs, numerous types of monkeys, and a bewildering variety of birds. Several hundred bird species nest in the immediate vicinity of the main Amazon channel, and alligators, anacondas, boa constrictors, capybaras, and several smaller reptiles and mammals are found along the riverbanks. In the waters are manatees, freshwater dolphins, and some 1,500 identified species of fish, including many types of piranhas (not all of them flesh-eating), electric eels, and some 450 species of catfish. There may also be hundreds of unidentified species.
The Amazon is also home to the world’s largest freshwater turtle, the yellow-headed sideneck (Podocnemis), which weighs an average of 150 pounds (70 kg) and is extinct everywhere else except on the island of Madagascar. The turtles, once a mainstay of local Indians’ diets, are now endangered, but they continue to be hunted illegally for their meat.
'''Conservation and ecology'''
Dozens of parks, biological reserves, and other protected areas have been established in Brazil’s vast wildernesses, many of which remain pristine; however, state and federal governments have not adequately maintained many parklands, and some have been modified to allow for new highways or other construction projects. In addition, pollution has degraded Brazil’s rivers, threatening the water supplies of most of the population, and ecological disasters are common: in 2000 alone there were major oil spills in Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay and in the Iguaçu River. The Brazilian government’s environmental agencies regularly fine manufacturers and mining companies for failing to provide adequate environmental safeguards, but the fines are often small and oversight lax. São Paulo and some other cities have dangerous levels of smog, mainly because of motor vehicle emissions; in response, the government has promoted the use of fuels containing ethanol and pollution-control policies to improve air quality. In the late 20th century Curitiba, one of Brazil’s larger cities, rapidly decreased local air pollution and traffic congestion by developing an innovative busing system and other programs.
Brazil’s first conservation law, issued in 1797, prohibited the burning or destruction of forests. The country’s first national parks were created in the late 1930s. From the mid-20th century, Brazilian and international environmental organizations have pressured the national government to curb damage to the Amazon rainforest, the Pantanal, and other ecosystems in Brazil. The government has become increasingly willing to address environmental issues, although widespread destruction has continued. The chief Brazilian environmental agency (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis, or IBAMA) was created in 1989 in an attempt to reform Brazil’s conservation system. IBAMA, which operates under the Ministry of the Environment, oversees the use of renewable resources, enforces federal environmental laws, and coordinates the efforts of various agencies. However, IBAMA has had limited funding and personnel: in the late 20th century it employed only one staff member for every 110 square miles (290 square km) of federally protected land. In 1992 Rio de Janeiro hosted the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (the Earth Summit), and a few years afterward Brazil and the major developed countries of the world issued a joint plan for the protection of the rainforest. (See also Amazon River: Ecological concerns.)
Many state and national parks are located near urban centres, but most of the newer national parks lie in remote areas, particularly at the headwaters of Amazon tributaries and adjacent to biological reserves or Indian reservations; they are not intended for any great number of visitors. Among the more popular national parks are Itatiaia, Iguaçu, and Serra dos Órgãos, all of which were created in the 1930s. The larger national parks, which range in size from roughly 2,170 to 8,770 square miles (5,620 to 22,700 square km), include Neblina Peak (1979), Jaú (1980), Amazônia (Tapajós; 1974), Serra do Divisor (1989), Pacaás Novos (1979), and Cape Orange (1980), all in the North, and Xingu (1961) and Araguaia (on Bananal Island; 1959), both in the Central-West. In the mid-1980s the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Iguaçu Falls a World Heritage site, followed by Serra da Capivara National Park in 1991 and two coastal regions in 1999, including the Serra do Mar in the Southeast and the Discovery Coast of Bahia state.
'''Settlement patterns'''
Frontier settlement and domestic migration have been features of Brazilian society since prehistoric times. The settlement of what is now Brazil began many thousands of years ago with the arrival of hunters and gatherers. At the time of European contact (in 1500), skilled farmers and fishers occupied the best lands of the Amazon and Paraguay river systems and most of the coastal plains, making up the bulk of the region’s two to six million native inhabitants.
'''THE NORTHEAST COAST'''
The first European occupants of Brazil settled in the early 16th century among the coastal Indian villages or at the trading posts that they established at Salvador and at Cabo Frio (now in Rio de Janeiro state). They exchanged hardware and trinkets with the Indians for brazilwood, which was used for making a valuable, fire-coloured dye (brasa is Portuguese for “live coals”). Sugarcane began to dominate the colonial economy in the second half of the 16th century, giving rise to a scattering of urban centres, among which Olinda and Salvador were the most important. By that time the coastal Indian populations had been decimated, and slaves from Africa were being imported to work on the rapidly expanding plantations, which flourished particularly during the early and mid-17th century.
'''THE SOUTHEAST: MINING AND COFFEE'''
During the first two centuries of Brazilian colonization, little attention was paid to the nearly inaccessible and seemingly unproductive highlands, although parties of explorers, known as bandeirantes, traversed them from time to time, capturing Indians for slaves and searching for precious metals and stones. Some of the bandeirantes settled in the interior and introduced small groups of cattle that eventually expanded into large herds; cattle raising came to dominate Brazil’s economy from the caatinga to the Pantanal. The first gold strike occurred in what is now Minas Gerais in 1695, and during the 18th century Brazil furnished a large portion of the world’s gold reserves. Diamonds were found in the same region in 1729, and visions of instant wealth attracted many plantation owners, with their slaves, from the Northeast. They spent money lavishly on the construction of fine towns, such as Ouro Prêto and Diamantina, and also invested in small industries to supply the mines and farms, which were soon producing a surplus for export. Brazil’s economic and political centre shifted from the Northeast to the Southeast after settlers built roads over the Serra do Mar to the coast, and the royal government transferred the colonial capital from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro in 1763. During the 19th century, great coffee plantations brought additional wealth into the region. The plantations developed chiefly in the Paraíba do Sul valley, which runs from eastern São Paulo to eastern Rio de Janeiro states. By the 1860s thousands of European immigrants, chiefly Italians, were flowing into the region, and two decades later their influx increased to some 40,000 per year.
Rio de Janeiro’s population had passed 500,000 by the time the slaves were fully emancipated in 1888, whereas the city of São Paulo, the entrepôt for all of Brazil south and west of Minas Gerais, was still a modest town of 65,000. That situation changed as the flood of European immigrants began to arrive. Some of the newcomers worked as tenants on the coffee plantations that were expanding across São Paulo and northern Paraná states, while others established themselves on small freeholds along the southern coast and in the forests. The southernmost group remained physically and culturally isolated until after World War II, but the immigrants in São Paulo played a key role in building railroads and industries that gave the city and the state their preeminence in the Brazilian economy.
'''THE BACKLANDS AND AMAZONIA'''
During the same period, the Northeast’s large population struggled to advance economically in the face of drought, high rates of unemployment, and an archaic landholding system that concentrated all of the best coastal lands in the hands of a few powerful landowners. The Northeast remained economically depressed throughout much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and economic booms elsewhere drew people out of the region. Among the first groups to migrate outward were large numbers of farmers who had settled in the sertão, or backlands, of the Northeast; they abandoned their lands in the 1870s and ’80s because of severe drought but found employment by resettling in the Amazon region to the north and west, where they tapped rubber trees. Northeasterners took part in another mass migration in the mid-20th century, primarily to the central interior of the country to help construct Brasília. Others began moving to the sparsely populated forests in the northern part of the Brazilian Highlands and to the frontier Amazonian zones of Rondônia and Acre. There they were joined by migrants from southern Brazil who had lost their livelihoods to the spread of mechanized agriculture.
The entire Amazon region had an estimated population of merely 40,000 in the mid-19th century, but the population exploded after Northeasterners and other Brazilians poured into the area during the rubber boom, which reached its apex between 1879 and 1912. As a result, Belém and Manaus grew from somnolent villages into modest cities, and by the end of World War I the region’s population rose to some 1.4 million. In the late 1950s Japanese settlers began raising jute and black pepper along the lower Amazon, and in the process they created a temporary economic boom. Brazilians also developed manganese deposits in Amapá from the mid-20th century, and a pioneer zone appeared along a newly constructed highway between Belém and Brasília. Forestry, cattle raising, and gold mining spread deeper into the region at the expense of the rainforest; nevertheless, the Amazon region remained the most underpopulated part of Brazil, and government attempts to lure more settlers there had limited success.
'''ONGOING DOMESTIC MIGRATION'''
Low rural incomes, limited landownership, and variable climatic conditions have continued to drive migration in Brazil; in addition, large-scale commercial agriculture in the South and Southeast has limited the number of jobs available to unskilled rural labourers, causing whole families of poor sertanejos (people from the sertão) to flee to frontier areas or cities. The North and Central-West regions have the highest net influx of population, especially in the Federal District and Rondônia. Parts of the Southeast and South have also received large numbers of migrants, particularly São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states, which have also benefited from foreign immigration. Some rural families from the southeastern state of Minas Gerais and the southernmost states of Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná have moved to an agricultural frontier arching from Rondônia and northern Mato Grosso to western Bahia. Many other migrants to the frontier have come from the Northeast, particularly from the state of Piauí, in the heart of the drought region. Families in Maranhão have been leaving its eastern half, which is also in the drought quadrilateral, and moving into its western half, which is a zone of rainforests.
'''URBANIZATION'''
Brazil’s rural settlement patterns were largely defined by the mid-20th century, after which the nation began a headlong drive toward industrialization: this transformed Brazil from essentially rural to urban, led by the cities of the Southeast and South. By the turn of the 21st century, government statistics described four-fifths of the population as urban and one-fifth as rural; however, according to an alternative set of definitions, about three-fifths of the population could be described as urban, nearly one-third as rural, and about one-tenth as partly urban and partly rural. In 1940 less than one-third of a total population of 42 million lived in urban areas; by the end of the 20th century about 18 million lived in the São Paulo metropolitan area alone, which ranked as one of the world’s most populous cities. In addition, by that time the highly urbanized state of São Paulo had about one-third of Brazilian industry, a gross domestic product greater than that of many nations, and a population rivaling that of Argentina.
Rio de Janeiro has Brazil’s second largest metropolitan population. Other major urban areas include Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Fortaleza, Curitiba, and Recife—each with millions of residents. Slightly smaller are Brasília, Belém, Manaus, Goiânia, and Campinas. Rapid urban growth has produced a series of physical and social problems, while the demand for housing has raised urban land values to staggering heights. As a result, members of the middle class have been increasingly forced to live in minuscule apartments in densely packed high-rises, while the poor are confined in nearby favelas (“shantytowns”) or in residential areas that may be several hours away from their workplaces. Brasília and Curitiba, unlike most Brazilian cities, have benefited from large-scale urban planning.

Latest revision as of 09:15, 5 March 2015

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