Brazil

The only American country whose independence was declared by the heir to the empire it was leaving. Portugal claimed the coast in 1500 and built a sugar economy on the northeast worked by enslaved Africans, importing around five million people over three centuries - roughly forty per cent of the entire Atlantic trade and more than ten times what reached the United States. Palmares, a settlement of escaped slaves in the interior, held out for most of the seventeenth century. When Napoleon invaded Portugal in 1807 the court fled to Rio, making it the seat of a European empire, and when the king returned his son Pedro declared independence in 1822 and crowned himself emperor - so Brazil became a monarchy while its neighbours became republics, and avoided the fragmentation they suffered. The empire lasted until 1889, abolishing slavery only in 1888, the last country in the Americas to do so. Coffee then rubber then industry followed. Getulio Vargas governed for most of 1930 to 1954, a military dictatorship ran from 1964 to 1985, and Brasilia was built inland from nothing in the 1950s. The Amazon holds the largest rainforest on earth. Portuguese makes it the largest lusophone country by far. The country has about 213 million people and is the fifth largest by area. Sao Paulo is the largest city in the southern hemisphere. Brasilia's planned layout is a World Heritage site. Brazil has won the football World Cup five times, more than any other country. Its Atlantic forest is more endangered than the Amazon.

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