It is one of the world's leading agricultural nations and is especially well known as the world's most prominent coffee-producer. Brazil has 4,600 miles of coastline, one of the largest river systems in the world with 27,000 navigable miles, millions of acres of soil, adequate water, minerals and hardwood forests.
Brazil has one-seventh of the world's total forest area.
Hardwoods predominate in the Amazon and Atlantic coastal zone. This was the result of being oftentimes heavily dependent on one or two major agricultural products, the markets for which were highly sensitive to fluctuations in the world economy and politics. Whether Brazil was known to Portuguese navigators in the 15th century is unsolved, but the coast was visited by the Spanish sailor Vicente Y ez Pinz n before the Portuguese expedition led by Pedro Alvares Cabral in 1500. The natives taught the explorers about the cultivation of corn, the construction of hammocks, and the use of dugout canoes. The development of the Northeast began at about the same time, under Mart m Afonso de Sousa the first royal governor.