In the given work the speech will go about the interesting and attractive country – Brazil.
For hundreds of years, Brazil has symbolized the great escape into a primordial, tropical paradise, igniting the Western imagination like no other South American country.
From the mad passion of Carnaval to the immensity of the dark Amazon, Brazil is a country of mythic proportions. All the while, the people of Brazil delight visitors with their energy, fantasy and joy.
Full country name: República Federativa do Brazil
Area: 8,547,403 sq km (3,300,155 sq mi)
Population: 172 million
Capital city: Brasília
People: 55% European descent, 38% mulatto, 6% African descent (according to the 1980 census). In reality, these figures are skewed by whiteness being equated with social stature in Brazil.
Language: Portuguese
Religion: 70% Roman Catholic; also a significant proportion who either belong to various cults or practice Indian animism
Government: Federal republic
President: Fernando Henrique Cardoso
GDP: US$650 billion
GDP per head: US$4060
Inflation: 8% (2005)
Major industries: Textiles, shoes, chemicals, lumber, iron ore, tin, steel, motor vehicles and parts, arms, soya beans, orange juice, beef, chicken, coffee, sugar.
Major trading partners: EU, Central and South America, Asia, USA.
Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world; in terms of population (163 million) as well as land area. It is the economic leader of South America, with the ninth largest economy in the world, and a large iron and aluminum ore reserve. The Brazilian city of Sao Paulo is the third largest in the world with more than 22 million people.
From the Amazon basin in the north and west to the Brazilian Highlands in the southeast, Brazil's topography is quite diverse. The Amazon River system carries more water to the ocean than any other river system in the world. It is navigable for its entire 2006 mile trip within Brazil. The basin is home to the most rapidly depleting rain forest in the world, losing about 52, 000 square miles (20, 000 square kilometers) annually. The basin, occupying more than sixty percent of the entire country, receives more than eighty inches (about 200 cm) of rain a year in some areas. Almost all of Brazil is humid as well as either has a tropical or subtropical climate. Brazil's rainy season occurs during the summer months. Eastern Brazil suffers from regular drought. There is little seismic or volcanic activity due to Brazil's position near the center of the South American Plate.
The Brazilian Highlands and plateaus generally average less than 4000 feet (1220 meters) but the highest point in Brazil is Pico de Neblina at 9888 feet (3014 meters). Extensive uplands lie in the southeast and drop off quickly at the Atlantic Coast. Much of the coast is composed of the Great Escarpment which looks like a wall from the ocean.
Brazil encompasses so much of South America that it shares borders with all South American nations except Ecuador and Chile. Brazil is divided into 26 states and a Federal District. The state of Amazonas has the largest area (600, 000 square miles or 1. 5 million square kilometers) and the most populous is Sao Paulo (about 35 million inhabitants). The capital city of Brazil is Brasilia, a master planned city built in the late 1950s where nothing existed before in the Mato Grasso plateaus. Now, more than 1. 9 million people reside in the Federal District.
The state of Sao Paulo is responsible for about half of Brazil's Gross Domestic Product as well as about two-thirds of it manufacturing. While only about five percent of the land is cultivated, Brazil leads the world in coffee production (about 30% of the global total). Brazil also produces 26% of the world citrus, have 12% of the cattle supply, and produce 19% of the iron ore. Most of Brazil's sugar cane production (12% of the world total) is used to create gasohol which powers a portion of Brazilian automobiles. The key industry of the country is automobile production.
It will be very interesting to watch the future of the South American giant.
Brazil is a presidential republic. Election is for a 5‑year term by universal suffrage (over 16 years).
Legislative power is exercised by the 81‑seat senate and the 513‑seat chamber of deputies, elected for 4‑year terms by universal suffrage. The size of legislative assemblies in each state varies according to its population.
The major political parties are: Partido da Social-Democracia Brasileira (PSDBO, the right-wing Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL), the centrist Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), the right-wing Partido Progressista Brasileiro(PPB), the left-wing Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), and the centre-left Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT).
The current head of state is Fernando Henrique Cardoso (re-elected October 2004).
Military:
Total armed forces in 2003 comprised 314,700. Of these, 200,000 were in the army (including 125,000 conscripts); 64,700 in the navy (2,000 conscripts) and 50,000 in the air force (5,000 conscripts).
Brazil is the world's ninth largest country, occupying almost half the South American continent and bordering every country on it except Chile and Ecuador. Much of Brazil is scarcely populated, although some regions with previously low population densities, such as the Amazon, are being rapidly settled, logged and depleted.
Brazil can be divided into four major geographic regions. The long, narrow Atlantic seaboard has coastal ranges between the Rio Grande do Sul and Bahia, but is flatter north of Bahia. The large highlands – called the Planalto Brasileiro, or central plateau – which extend over most of Brazil's interior south of the Amazon Basin are punctuated by several small mountain ranges and sliced by several large rivers. There are also two great depressions: the Parana-Paraguay basin in the south, which is characterized by open forest, low woods and scrubland; and the huge, densely forested Amazon basin in the north. The Amazon, 6275 km (3890 mi) long, is the world's largest river, and the Amazon forest contains 30% of the world's remaining forest.
The richness and diversity of Brazil's fauna – much of which is endemic – is astounding, and the country ranks first in the world for numbers of species of mammals, freshwater fish and plants; second for amphibians, third for bird species; and fifth for species of reptiles. Despite its natural riches, Brazil is renowned for the destruction of its environment. All of Brazil's major ecosystems are threatened, not just the well-known Amazonia. Many species are under threat because of the continued depletion of rainforests, desertification in the northeast, poaching in the Pantanal region and coastal pollution.
Most of the country has noticeable seasonal variations in rain, temperature and humidity, but only the south of Brazil has large seasonal changes. The Brazilian winter is from June to August, with the coldest southern states receiving average winter temperatures of between 13 °C and 18 °C (55°F and 64°F). In summer (December to February), Rio is hot and humid, with temperatures in the high 30°C (80°F) common; the rest of the year, temperatures usually hover around 25 °C (77°F). The northeast coast gets as hot as Rio in the summer but tropical breezes make it less humid and stifling. In general, the Planalto Brasiliero is less hot and humid, and is prone to summer rainfalls. The Amazon basin is the rainiest part of Brazil (the term 'rainforest' is a bit of a giveaway), and while it is humid, temperatures average a reasonable 27 °C (80°F).
Two of the world's fifteen largest cities are in Brazil: Sao Paulo (17 million) and Rio de Janeiro (10. 1 million), and are only about 250 miles (400 km) apart. Rio de Janeiro surpassed Sao Paulo's population in the 1950s. Rio de Janeiro's status also suffered when it was replaced by Brasilia as the capital in 1960, a position Rio de Janeiro had held since 1763. However, Rio de Janeiro is still the undisputed cultural capital (and major international transportation hub) of Brazil.
Sao Paulo is growing at an incredible rate. The population has doubled since 1977 when it was an 11 million people metropolis. Both cities have a huge ever-expanding ring of shanty towns and squatter settlements on their periphery. Salvador is Brazil's third largest urban area with a population of about 4 million people.
The size of the largest metropolitan areas in the world is almost incomprehensible, all are larger than many nations. Here's a list of the ten largest metropolitan areas (also known as urban agglomerations, among other things) along with their current estimated population:
| Rank | City | Population |
| 1 | Tokyo, Japan | 28 million |
| 2 | New York City, United States | 20.1 million |
| 3 | Mexico City, Mexico | 18.1 million |
| 4 | Mumbai, India (Bombay) | 18 million |
| 5 | Sao Paulo, Brazil | 17.7 million |
| 6 | Los Angeles, United States | 15.8 million |
| 7 | Shanghai, China | 14.2 million |
| 8 | Lagos, Nigeria | 13.5 million |
| 9 | Kolkata, India (Calcutta) | 12.9 million |
| 10 | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 12.5 million |
5. Capital of Brasilia
Many people think of Rio de Janeiro as the capital of Brazil. It's not. Brasília is Brazil's capital since 21 April 1960. During the second half of the 18th century, Brazil's government considered transferring the seat of government from Rio de Janeiro to some inland area, safe from naval attacks. The first Republican constitution went so far as to define where the future Federal District would be- a rectangular area within the state of Goiás, in the heart of the country.
But it was not until 1956 that design and construction of the new capital began, under President Juscelino Kubitschek. The city does not have to offer a lot, apart from the architecture. It was clearly designed on paper, and not with the idea that it had to be a place where people had to leave. It's clearly designed for the automobile.
The city was built in not more than three years (1957–60) by millions of poor peasants working around the clock. The competition for the urban master plan was won by Brazilian architect and urban planner, Lúcio Costa. The Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer designed the government buildings, and landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx selected plant varieties which, placed in his layout, have added a vivid green backdrop to the surrounding savannah. Bureaucrats and politicians are lured to Brasília with the promise of 100% salary hikes and big apartments, but as soon as the weekend comes they speed off to to Rio or São Paulo – anywhere that's less sterile. The poor, who work in the construction and service industries, pass their nights in favelas up to 30km (19mi) outside the city, called 'anti-Brasilia's.
Brazilian culture has been shaped not only by the Portuguese, who gave the country its most common religion and language, but also by the country's native Indians, the considerable African population, and other settlers from Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Brazilian music has always been characterized by great diversity and, shaped by musical influences from three continents, is still developing new and original forms. The samba, which reached the height of popularity in the 1930s, is a mixture of Spanish bolero with the cadences and rhythms of African music. Its most famous exponent was probably Carmen Miranda, known for her fiery temperament and fruity headdresses. The more subdued bossa nova, popular in the 1950s and characterized by songs such as 'The Girl from Ipanema', was influenced by North American jazz. Tropicalismo is a mix of musical influences that arrived in Brazil in the 1960s and led a more electric samba. More recently, the lambada, influenced by Caribbean rhythms, became internationally popular in the 1980s.
Among Brazil's writers of fiction, Machado de Assis stands out with his terse, ironic style. The son of a freed slave, Assis worked as a typesetter and journalist in 19th-century Rio. Brazil's most famous 20th-century writer is the regionalist Jorge Amado, whose tales are colorful romances of Bahia's people and places.
Brazil is officially a Catholic country, but in practice the country's religious life incorporates Indian animism, African cults, Afro-Catholic syncretism and Kardecism, a spiritualist religion embracing Eastern mysticism, which is gaining popularity with Brazilian Whites. Portuguese, infused with many words from Indian and African languages, is spoken by all Brazilians. Accents, dialects and slang vary regionally.
The staples of the Brazilian diet are arroz (white rice), feijão (black beans) and farinha (manioc flour), usually combined with steak, chicken or fish. Brazilian specialties include moqueca, a seafood stew flavored with dendê oil and coconut milk; caruru, okra and other vegetables mixed with shrimp, onions and peppers; and feijoada, a bean and meat stew. On many street corners in Bahia, women wearing flowing white dresses sell acarajé, beans mashed in salt and onions, fried in dendê oil and then filled with seafood, manioc paste, dried shrimp, pepper and tomato sauce.
In contrast to the Inca and Maya, the Brazilian Indians never developed a centralized civilization. Assisted by the jungle and climate, they left very little evidence for archaeologists to study: just some pottery, shell mounds and skeletons. The Indian population was quite diverse and there were an estimated two to six million living in the territory that is now Brazil when the Portuguese first arrived. Today there are fewer than 200,000, most of them in the hidden jungles of the Brazilian interior.
In 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral set sail from Lisbon with 13 ships and 1200 crew, ostensibly for India, and arrived on the Brazilian coast near present-day Porto Seguro by 'accident'. Some historians say it was his intended destination all along, and it's true that his 'discovery' was reported to the king in such matter-of-fact terms that it seems that the existence of Brazil was already well-known to mariners. In 1531 King João III of Portugal sent the first settlers to Brazil and, in 1534, fearing the ambitions of other European countries, he divided the coast into 15 hereditary captaincies, which were given to friends of the Crown.
The colonists soon discovered that the land and climate were ideal for growing sugar cane, and solved the prodigious labor requirements by enslaving the Indian population, despite their resistance. The capture and sale of slaves soon became one of Brazil's most lucrative trades, and was dominated by the bandeirantes, men from São Paulo usually born of Indian mothers and Portuguese fathers. They hunted the Indians into the interior, and by the mid‑1600s had reached the peaks of the Peruvian Andes. Their brutal exploits, more than any treaty, secured the huge interior of South America for Portuguese Brazil.
From the mid‑16th century, and particularly during the 17th century, African slaves, despite their resistance, replaced Indians on the plantations. They were less vulnerable to European diseases, but their lives were short regardless. Quilombos, communities of runaway slaves, were common throughout the colonial era. They ranged from mocambos, small groups hidden in the forests, to the great republic of Palmares that survived for much of the 17th century. In the 1690s, gold was discovered in Minas Gerais and the rush was on. Brazilians and Portuguese flooded into the territory and countless slaves were brought from Africa to dig and die in the mines.
In 1807, Napoleon's army marched on Lisbon. Two days before the invasion, the Portuguese Prince Regent, later to become Dom João VI, set sail for Brazil. Soon after arriving, he made Rio de Janeiro the capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarve; Brazil became the only New World colony to serve as the seat of a European monarch. In 1822 the Prince Regent's son, Pedro, who had been left behind to rule the colony when his father returned to Portugal, pulled out his sword and yelled the battle cry 'Independência ou morte!' (independence or death). Portugal was too weak to fight its favorite son, so Brazil became an independent empire without spilling a drop of blood.
During the 19th century, coffee replaced sugar as Brazil's major export. At first the coffee plantations used slave labor, but with the abolition of slavery in 1888, thousands of European immigrants, mostly Italians, poured in to work on the coffee estates, called fazendas. In 1889, a military coup, supported by the powerful coffee aristocracy, toppled the Brazilian Empire, and for the next 40 years, Brazil was governed by a series of military and civilian presidents supervised, in effect, by the armed forces.