South America Travel Guides

Geography

Brazil is the world's fifth-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 Paraná-Paraguai 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, 6275km (3890mi) long, is the world's largest river. It carries more water to the sea than any other river and the Amazon forest contains 30% of the world's remaining forest.