




See also: Travel topics -- Electrical systems

Holidays and working hours

Brazil observes the following 13 national holidays:

New Year - 1st January


Good Friday - March/April movable two days before Easter Sunday

Tiradentes - 21st April

Labour Day - 1st May

Corpus Christi - May/June movable sixty days after Easter Sunday

Independence Day - 7th September

Patroness of Brazil - 12th October

All Souls' Day Finados - 2nd November

Republic - 15th November

Christmas - 25th December


History and economy

Until 1500, Brazil was inhabited solely by indigenous people, mainly of the Tupi and Guarani ethnic groups. Actual settling by the Portuguese began later that century, with the extraction of valuable "poperie" wood, from which the country draws its name. Brazil was settled by the Portugese and not the Spanish as the rest of Central, South and parts of North America in the New World, because of the Papal Line of Demarcation. Despite Portugese rule, some parts of Brasil formed a Dutch colony between 1630 and 1654. They founded several cities Mauritsville and many sugar reed plantations. The Dutch fought a grim jungle war with the Portugese, and without the support of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces The Netherlands because of the war with England, the Dutch surrendered to Portugese, though they did not officially recognize Portugese rule, which led to an all-out war with Portugal off the coast of Portugal in 1656. In 1665 the Peace Treaty of The Hague was signed, Portugal lost its Asian colonies and had to pay 63 tons of gold to compensate the Dutch Republic for its losing its colony. The following four centuries saw further exploitation of the country's natural riches gold and rubber besides the rise of an economy based on agriculture sugar and coffee and slave labor, millions of Africans taken to the new world in a forced diaspora. Meanwhile, extermination or Christianizing of natives kept its pace, and the 19th Century saw a second wave of European mainly Italian and German immigration, adding to this unique and complex set of factors that generated today's equally complex and unique Brazilian culture and society.

Following three centuries under the rule of Portugal, Brazil became an independent nation on September 7th, 1822. By far the largest and most populous country in South America, it has also overcome more than two decades 1964-1988 of military intervention in the governance of the country to pursue a democratic ruling, while facing the challenge of keeping its industrial and agricultural growth and developing its interior. Exploiting vast natural resources and a large labor pool, today Brazil is South America's leading economic power and a regional leader. Highly unequal income distribution remains a pressing problem. A consequence of this is a high crime rate, specifically in large cities.

After 20 years of democracy, the country has grown strong, and despite the social problems of the unequal income distribution, the people have remained happy and festive.


Brazil is a huge country with different climate zones. In the North, near the equator there is a wet and a dry season; from about SÃ£o Paulo down to the south there is spring/summer/fall/winter.





Attitudes towards foreigners may also be subject to regional differences:


In Salvador, the largest city of the Northeast, anyone talking, acting or looking like a tourist even other Brazilians! could be charged higher prices, such as in parking lots, in restaurants, etc.








Owing to Brazilâs continental dimensions, varied geography, history and people, the countryâs culture is rich and diverse. It has several regional variations, and in spite of being mostly unified by a single language, some regions are so different from each other that they look like different countries altogether.



In the classical music, the Modern Period is particularly notable, due to the works of composers like Heitor Villa-Lobos and Camargo Guarnieri, who created a typical Brazilian school, mixing elements of the traditional European classical music to the Brazilian rhythms, while other composers like ClÃ¡udio Santoro followed the guidelines of the Second School of Vienna. In the Romantic Period, the greatest name was Antonio Carlos Gomes, author of some Italian-styled operas with typical Brazilian themes, like Il Guarany and Lo Schiavo. In the Classical Period, the most prominent name is JosÃ© MaurÃ­cio Nunes Garcia, a priest who wrote both sacred and secular music and was very influenced by the Viennese classical style of the 18th and early 19th century.


Indigenous traits can be found everywhere in Brazilian culture, from cuisine to vocabulary. There are still many indigenous groups and tribes living in all Brazilian regions, although many have been deeply influenced by Western culture, and several of the country's surviving indigenous languages are in danger of disappearing completely. The traditional lifestyle and graphic expressions of the WajÃ£pi indigenous group from the state of AmapÃ¡ were proclaimed a Masterpiece of the World's Intangible Heritage ( by UNESCO.

Globo, the largest national television network, also plays an important role in shaping the national identity. Nine out of ten households have a TV set, which is the most important source of information and entertainment for most Brazilians, followed by the radio broadcast. TVs broadcast sports, movies, local and national news and telenovelas soap operasâ 6-10 month-long series that have become one of the countryâs main cultural exports.