Hey, geograpeeps. So, Brazil is one of the largest countries in the world.
Obviously, I won't be able to cover everything within about 10 minutes.
I'll try to do my best, but in the meantime...
♪ Soccer, monkeys, Amazon Ronaldo and samba songs ♪
♪ Capoeira, anacondas, carnaval ♪
♪ and attractive people that kinda have like tanned skin ♪
Oh come on, guys, you knew that was coming.
[intro jingle]
It's time to learn geography, NOW!
Hey, everybody. I'm your host Barby. I guess that's a thing now.
And after weeks of anticipation, we finally finished the Brazil video.
And you know how we start these things: let's dissect the flag.
The flag of Brazil has a green field with a yellow rhombus in the middle, and a blue disk in the center
with 27 stars scattered throughout the disk and the country's motto depicted on a white band, sprawled across the blue disk.
Some people might tell you that the green represents forests, and yellow represents gold
but... yeah, that's not really true.
The green and yellow are actually inspired from the former imperial flag of Brazil,
which was derived from two royal households: the green representing the House of Braganza,
- for King Dom Pedro I - and the yellow for the House of Habsburg that his wife Maria Leopoldina came from.
The blue disk and the stars are what make up the most fun part of this flag;
each star represents one of the 27 states of Brazil.
Furthermore, they are all separated into 9 different constellations
that you can typically see in the Southern Hemisphere.
Straddling across the blue disk is a banner with the country's motto "Ordem e Progresso",
which means "Order and Progress".
A flag with stars representing each state in the country.
Ah, Brazil, I think there's some people that can gel well with that.
POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY
Now, here's where things get a little fun, because each section of Brazil kinda has its own little story.
But first: Brazil is the largest country in the South American continent.
If you grew up in Latin America, you would've been told that both South and North America are, together, one continent,
but for pragmatic, definitional reasons, we're just gonna treat South America as a separate entity
- as its own continent.
Brazil's domain stretches all the way from the Atlantic coast, and deep into the interior of the continent.
Brazil is bordered by every single South American country, except for Ecuador and Chile.
You could also technically say that Brazil borders France.
Why? Because of this little guy - French Guiana.
That's right. This is not a country, but rather an overseas territory of France.
That's okay, raise your hand if you just learned that.
You're learning!
The country's capital is the aptly named Brasília
located slightly inland in the central west region of Brazil,
and actually administers itself in its own Federal District, much like Washington D.C.
Brasília was actually built in 1960 as they were switching from the old capital Rio de Janeiro.
That's right, it's pronounced Rio 'Jay' Janeiro, not Rio 'Day' Janeiro.
Get it right, we're not in Mexico. This is Portuguese, not Spanish.
This was done in an attempt to provide a more regional neutrality for the rest of the states in Brazil
by centralizing the capital.
Brazil is divided into 27 federative units, 26 of which are states
and one Federal District which is where the capital resides.
Each state and region of Brazil has their own unique flavor that they bring to the table
and we'll discuss more about that in the demographics, but essentially it kinda goes like this:
Central/West - "We grow food."
East - "We got all the moneeey!"
North - "We are so black."
South - "We are so white."
North West - "Stop cutting our trees."
In terms of disputes: Brazil has two disputed areas with Bolivia on the Mamoré River,
and two disputed areas with Uruguay on the Uruguay River
and in the Masoller Rivera that nobody cares about.
Funny backstory: Uruguay actually used to be part of Brazil, known as the Cisplatina Province,
yadi-yadi-yada, there was a war, they gained their independence.
Brazil has a ton of islands off their coast, but the furthest reaches of the Brazilian domain
would have to be the four islands and archipelago chains in the Atlantic.
Fernando de Noronha, the Rocas Atoll,
the Saint Peter and Saint Paul rocks, which is a non-permanent residence science lab station,
and Trindade and Martim Vaz.
Otherwise, the western mainland borders look kinda funny.
If you look at the map, it kinda looks like Brazil has river Tourette's syndrome
in which they have a lot of "half-rivers" but then they jump onto the next adjacent river
which is, like, a couple hundred kilometers away.
It's like 'Eh, I'll take part of the Rio Acre',
but then, 'Eh, I'll cut through and make my way over to the Rio Purús'.
'I'll take the Rio Santa Rosa', but then, 'Eh, I'll jump over to Rio Breu'.
This all had to do with centuries of disputes with the former empires,
and today you have this massive piece of sovereign complexity.
And that's just the borders - wait 'til you see what's inside the borders.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
When you think of Brazil, everybody just kinda automatically defaults to one image:
the Amazon.
And yes, the Amazon is a very imperative factor to the nation's domain,
however, there's a lot more to it in terms of landscape and terrain.
First of all, about 60% of the entire Amazon rainforest is located in Brazil
mostly in the north region, and, of course - no surprise - consists of the most heavily compact
eco-region on Earth.
Out of all the 10 million species of animals and insects known to human beings,
about half of them call the Amazon rainforest home.
Many of the species that have yet to be discovered are still lingering about
in the deep, uncharted depths of the Amazon today.
Now, we all know that there is a huge deforestation problem going on in Brazil
in the Amazon - to provide more agricultural land.
However, even Brazil's own citizens are harshly criticizing the action.
It's a little tricky, though, because with Brazil's rapidly growing population,
more resources are demanded of the people.
So, it's kinda like: "We get it, it's bad. But, I mean, what do you want us to do? Our country is growing,
and we need to provide you people with more stuff".
"Use alternative methods!"
"Like what?"
"We're working on it!"
Otherwise, outside of the Amazon,
the rest of the country has a vast array of contrasting scenery almost equally as fascinating.
Along the coast, you have the Mata Atlântica, or the Atlantic Forest.
The Cerrado, or the tropical savannas in the center.
This is also the area where most farms and ranches can be found.
Also, keep in mind, Brazil is one of the top countries in meat production and exports.
In the south, you have the Araucaria, or the pine evergreen forests.
In the north, you have the small mountains, especially close to the border of Venezuela
in which you can find one of the most notable natural landmarks - being the tripoint border
between Venezuela, Guyana, and Brazil - Mount Roraima.
Even though Brazil only owns about 5% of the mountain.
But still, it counts.
Roraima is one of the strangest-looking flat-top plateau mountains, with vertical cliffs
almost perpendicular to the ground, earning it the label as one of the hardest mountains to climb.
Fun side note: Mount Roraima was one of the areas that inspired the scenery for the Pixar movie 'Up',
which is a great movie. By the way, go ahead, watch it.
And with that said, Pixar and Disney, you can't sue me for copyright infringement rights
for using a clip of your movie in my corner box here,
because, in accordance with fair use limitation rights, I commented and gave a critique on your material.
Just letting you know: you can't sue me.
One of the most remarkably bizarre and unusual spots of the country, though, would have to be
the famous, flooded deserts of Lençóis Maranhenses.
This place, located on the north coast of the Maranhão State,
is almost alien-like, as there are, virtually, no places like it on Earth.
Essentially, it's a sand dune desert, with abundant lagoons
speckled throughout the entire region.
Although it gets a lot of rainfall yearly, the area supports little vegetation and wildlife.
Nonetheless, the area draws in thousands of tourists yearly
as it contains the almost paradoxical juxtaposition of elements in its scenery.
It's not every day that you see a flooded desert.
All right, let's talk about the Brazilian people.
DEMOGRAPHICS
"Biscoito!"
"Bolacha!"
"BISCOITO!"
"BOLACHA!"
Yeah, we'll explain what that means in a little bit, but first:
Now, of course, Brazil is incredibly diverse, but before we get into that
little pie graph thingamajiglet that we always do here in the demographics section,
I feel like it's very crucial to mention one important thing about Brazil's people.
Now, everybody knows that one of the most dramatically unique traits of Brazil
would have to be its people.
When asked "What do you think a Brazilian looks like?",
the stereotype is somebody with a perfectly bronze-toned body
and with slight Germanic features.
One reason why this stereotype has been perpetuated so extensively is because, in a strange way, it's kind of true.
Over the course of a few hundred years - since colonization - Brazil's population has
actually, virtually, invented an entirely new race that never exactly existed before
and it makes up nearly the half of the entire population.
I'm talking about the Pardo people.
Now, although the definition is vague and up for relative dispute,
essentially this is the easiest way I can describe it.
Pardo people are kind of like people that are either too white to be black, or too black to be white
and there's probably a little bit of Amerindian in there.
That being said, now let's jump into the pie graph.
Brazil has about 202 million people, making it the 5th most populous country in the world right behind Indonesia.
About 47% of the people identify as White, about 43% identify as Pardo,
about 8% are Black, 1.5 - Asian, and a very small portion - about .5% of the population - are Amerindian.
Speaking of Asians, at about 1.5 million strong, Brazil is actually the country with the largest
Japanese population outside of Japan,
about 70% of whom live in the city of São Paulo.
Asians have actually historically been migrating to Brazil for centuries.
In terms of socio-regional distinctions, Brazil has quite the buffet of ethnic enclaves.
For one, you can typically find more black people in the north
and especially in the Bahia state, where they make up over half of the entire population.
This is also the area where you can, disputably, find some of the best capoeira masters in the world
as it is believed to have originated in this area.
In the south and, more specifically, in the Rio Grande do Sul state
you have one of the largest white populations in the entire country with immigrants coming from places
like Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
In fact, many of these places have remained relatively untouched by the rest of Brazil
and many of the communities still retain the mother language of the country
the members of the community came from.
Oh, and there's a joke in Brazil that nobody has met anybody from the state of Acre;
it's so far and secluded that you may as well just call it North Bolivia.
Bolivia: "It's mine, Brazil."
Brazil: "Nope, too bad, we won it in the war; it's still ours, deal with it."
And of course, you have the various native tribal groups.
There are about 240 tribes that a little over 900,000 people claim to be a part of ethnically.
The government has recognized 690 territories and reservations for these various people groups
that make up about 13% of the entire country's land mass.
Nearly all of it localized in the Amazon rainforest.
Brazil's governmental agency for tribal peoples has a list of about 80 uncontacted tribal groups
that deliberately choose to remain disconnected from the rest of the world.
The governmental agency speculates that there are still many unnamed, undiscovered tribes
currently living in the vast uncharted forests of the Amazon.
Culture-wise, it really depends on where you are in Brazil,
but everybody knows that Brazil kinda has a very vibrant way that they carry themselves out to the rest of the world.
The center of culture, disputably, being Rio de Janeiro and the economic capital being São Paulo.
Most of the population lives within driving distance of the coasts,
so there is, in a sense, a prevalent "beach culture", especially for the people on the east side of the country.
Not everybody in Brazil loves soccer, in fact many places prefer basketball
and skateboarding has actually been a huge thing that's been exploding over the past few years.
And no, not everybody has been to a carnival.
Oh, and another thing, there is currently a war going on in Brazil,
it's been very brutal, it's been going on for decades and it's getting quite intense right now.
I'm talking about the cookie war.
In Brazil, people will ridicule you if you pronounce the word for cookie differently from them
and especially it's a whole Rio vs. São Paulo thing.
People in São Paulo will call it "bolacha" and the people in Rio will call it "biscoito".
This conflict has led to the violence and deaths leading in the victimization of people caught in the crossfire
and the...he-he-hey, you almost fell for it, didn't you?
Now let's talk about their relationships.
FRIENDZONE
Now, Brazil kinda gets along with everyone, but he's kinda like that friend that ventures off
and does whatever he wants, while you wait in the hallway until he comes back from doing whatever he's doing.
First off, pretty much all of their neighbor nations get along with them,
although Argentina has a huge competitive hatred for Brazil, when it comes to soccer.
But all that aside, they have good relations and trade policies.
Then, just like mentioned before the Angola video,
they get along with other nations of the former Portuguese Empire,
like Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, Cabo Verde and so on.
They even get along with Portugal and have no bitterness towards the former colonization.
Now, when it comes the U.S., for centuries they've been good friends and have a deep history of trade
and alliances, however recently Brazil has been kind of diddle-doddling off
making friends with other people that kind of give the U.S. the old shifty eyes.
Then we have Venezuela and Cuba.
Brazil has sided with the Venezuelan government more in the past few decades
and has built a 1.5 billion dollar port in Cuba.
Then we have Iran.
Recently, Brazil has been testing the waters on attempting to build ties with them,
although they haven't really improved much recently.
Nonetheless, Brazil is quit the popular guy, not many people dislike Brazil,
except for maybe the Brazilians in Brazil that may complain about their own country's administrative affairs,
but that's a lesson you'll have to learn by talking to an actual Brazilian person - not me,
plus we're almost out of time.
In conclusion, Brazil is so much more than just the Amazon and soccer
and we didn't even scratch the surface of Brazil in this video.
To find out more, I recommend just talk to a Brazilian,
just remember which side of the cookie you're on...
Stay tuned, Brunei is coming up next!
Hey geograpeeps, once again this episode was, the motion graphics were done by my good friend,
Jason King, thank you so much.
[Jason]: You're welcome.
Look at how complicated all this stuff is, all the motion tracking.
Jason, any words you wanna say very quickly before we run out of the credits?
- Just having a lot of fun, making people play soccer...yes...well, countries..
- Countries playing soccer, as you can see Brazil and Argentina,
thank you Jason, you're amazing, bye, that's it.