Brazil Basics

What actually you should know about Brazil for a start:

One of the major mistakes most people do is to be misinformed about what is happening in places other than their own. Modern times give us the opportunity to be informed and follow the latest events globally, may be personal or business issues.

Some people only know other countries to the extent the local media tells them, and it is rarely, or never, a good interpretation or deep analysis on the other’s culture.

As a Brazilian, and this is my point of view, Brazil is well known outside its borders by its beautiful women, coffee, welcoming culture, carnival, soccer, parties, Amazon, natural beauties, music, Capoeira, violence, corruption and this is where pretty much where the foreigners’ perceptions are settled.

Many people have heard many things about Brazil and watched movies about it, many foreigners love Brazil and are living, working and profiting in that sunny tropical land, while others remain in suspicion or ignorant about the real state of things there.

This chapter will begin to talk about Brazil in geographical terms. The reading is important because it will create an understanding about the real numbers and facts in terms of revenue and population profile in Brazil, may be even breaking some misconceptions which will lead to the many other considerations about specific markets inside Brazil within its many regions

Brazil is the largest and most populated country in South America makes border to every other country in the region except for Equador and Chile, with more than 8.5 million square miles is a country only slightly smaller than USA.

In 2011 Brazil reached 200 million people, it is a tropical country in most of its territory, quite warm all over the year, there isn’t any blizzards at all, with most of its territory good for agribusiness. There are no major nature hazards in Brazil, only some periods of drought and dry climate in the Northeastern region and some frost on the South by the winter.

Its official name is Federative Republic of Brazil (Republica Federativa do Brasil), and its capital is Brasilia, which can be seen on the above map just in the middle of the Brazilian territory, the major cities and most of the state capitals can be found along the Atlantic coast, there are some other urban centres in the countryside but most of Brazil’s population live on urban areas by the shores of the Atlantic ocean, cities like Rio de Janeiro, Salvador although the largest one is on a plateau two hour drive from the coast, Sao Paulo.

It is a Democratic Republic, where the President is elected by the direct popular suffrage. This Democracy nevertheless, in terms of Brazilian history is quite new, since it has been established only in 1988, when the Military Dictatorship Government decided in a peaceful transition to give away its power to the civilian rule, in 1985. Since then, as the new Democratic rule was installed, Brazil has really been doing much better, surpassing in UK’s GDP in 2011, becoming the sixth largest economy in the World.

It is also abides under of all major trade organizations and international agreements being a major player in the international diplomacy scene, also it is a pretty Western capitalistic country, where the culture is more than eager to try and use new products and new tendencies, without major religious impediments or other cultural incompatibilities or prejudice towards Western culture, private property and capital are fully protected and recognized by the law

Dilma Roussef
Current President of Brazil
First Woman to occupy
 the Presidential Chair

The official language it is Portuguese, spoken in all territory, heritage from our Portuguese forefathers who seized the land around 1500's although Brazil is such a big country there are some regionalisms and other languages along with the Portuguese are also spoken, some good examples would be certain European related communities, where Italian, Russian and German are still spoken by the descendants of the immigrants settled there around de 1800’s and the Amazon natives who can speak their own native language, that may vary from one group to another.

Spanish, English and French would be in this order the most spoken foreign languages in Brazil there isn’t hard data to confirm what percentage of Brazilians do speak English but considering information from the IBGE about percentage of Brazilians with tertiary education, around 4%, it could be argued more or less the same percentage speaks English as a second language, those people are more concentrated in the largest urban centres.

Nevertheless Brazil is well aware of this communication difficulty, having responded in many levels, creating, specially on tourist and business areas, bilingual traffic signs, public forms, street signs and it is quite prepared to welcome people from all over the world, Rio even have a special police branch, called the tourist police, all its officers do speak English and they are there to give special protection to foreigners.

Culturally Brazil is very open and welcoming, it is really aligned to Western values, capitalism has been the way to live there for centuries, and it is not going to change anytime soon, private property, enterprise and individual human rights are fully recognized and protected.

Ipanema Beach - Rio de Janeiro

Since Brazil has historically always dependent from foreign investment since colonial times this situation created a curiosity rather distrust mindset towards foreigners in the Brazilian culture, adding to that the fact Brazil hasn't been into a war, with the exception of the support offered to USA in WWII, for at least 150 years.

Because of recent social reforms aiding the poor classes Brazil has been experimenting a drop in violence and a boom in basic consumer products sales.


Hence I could say with some proud that we are amongst the most welcoming nations in the world, the foreigner in Brazil is seen as somebody to be friends with, most westerners are really surprised with the people’s willingness to discover and hear about other’s culture, having business and fun.