History • Government • Currency • Language • People • Family
Religion • Diet • Climate • Sports • Carnival • Small Dictionary

Brazil has a civilian President democratically elected. The bicameral legislative system is composed of the National Congress and the Senate. These two houses hold different levels of political representatives: state and national.

The REAL is the national currency and its approximate quotation is R$2.50 to US$1.00

Portuguese is the national language yet it has quite a different accent from the one spoken in Portugal and in other former Portuguese colonies .

Brazilians descend from a mixture of races. Portuguese settlers, native Indian peoples, African slaves, and French and Dutch settlers who tried to conquer the northeast of the country. In the XX Century, German, Italian, Polish and Japanese immigrants added new elements to that social texture.
Brazil is likely the most racially mixed culture of our time.

Brazilians are very affectionate, outgoing and like to demonstrate what and how they feel at all times. Family ties are strong and parents tend to be overprotective of their children, especially of girls. For example, teenage girls often have earlier curfews than teenage boys of the same age.
Supervising children and caring for household is normally the wife's responsibility while husbands are busy with work. Parents expect to know when and where their children are going out, and usually a curfew is set.

Brazil is a Catholic country and yet religious openness prevails. There's a variety of faith but there's also great respect for its own syncretism. This is probably what provides Brazilians with greater tolerance and a broader sense of religious practices.

The staples of the Brazilian diet are arroz (white rice), feijão (beans), and farofa (manioc flour), also called farinha. These are usually served with carne (beef), carne de porco (pork), frango (chicken), or peixe (fish) and a lettuce and tomato salad. Feijoada , the national dish is a meat and bean stew served with rice. Barbecued meat is very popular and traditional foods also include African-influenced fish and chicken stews.

Brazil is by far the largest country in South America. Its size is 8,5 million km2 and most of it lies within tropical climate. Temperatures and vegetation varies quite a lot according to cities altitude. The seasons are exactly the opposite from those in the Northern Hemisphere except in the North of the country where its climate is Equatorial.
The average annual temperature is approximately 28ºC/83Fº in the North and 20ºC/68Fº in the South.
Temperatures may drop below freezing in the South, but, in Rio de Janeiro during summer temperatures may reach 40ºC/105Fº for several days.

Brazilian fondness for sports, in general and for soccer, in particular, is shown by the existence of some 8,000 sports clubs throughout the country. No other sport in Brazil can be compared in popularity to soccer, which Brazilians call futebol . This passion for the sport is reflected in the number and size of soccer stadiums all over the country. The Maracanã Stadium, built in Rio de Janeiro for the 1950 World Cup is the largest in the world with 200,000 seats.

Carnival is a moveable feast, tied to the religious Calendar and is celebrated all over the country. It is a traditional pre-Lenten celebration which ends on Ash Wednesday.
Carnival activities around Brazil normally take place from the Friday prior to Ash Wednesday and continue up to and including Ash Wednesday itself. Most Brazilian offices and business close for Carnival week as also many companies in many parts of the world close between Christmas and the New Year's Eve.