The fifth largest country in the world, Brazil is the largest country in Latin America and has territory slightly larger than that of the continental United States. Its population, estimated at nearly 180 million, is the largest in Latin America and constitutes about half of the population in South America. With 80 percent of its population living in cities and towns, Brazil is one of the most urbanized and industrialized countries in Latin America. Consisting of dense forest, semiarid scrub land, rugged hills and mountains, rolling plains, and long coastal strip, Brazil's landmass is dominated by the Amazon Basin and Central Highlands. The world's largest rain forest is located in this basin.
Brazil is one of the world's leading exporters of agricultural products.
Except for wheat, Brazil is largely self-sufficient in food and is the world's largest exporter of coffee, orange juice concentrate, and tobacco, and second largest exporter of sugar and soybeans. These groups have intermingled over the years to create a society with considerable ethnic complexity. The Native American population has been in Brazil the longest, but is now the smallest group. The Portuguese began arriving in 1500, and other European groups came after 1850. The ancestors of African Brazilians arrived as slaves, beginning about the mid-1500s and ending in 1850 when the slave trade was abolished.