II- THE DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION AND OF LAND

2.1 Characteristics of the Territory
2.2 Rural Production
2.3 The Demographic Phenomenon

2.1 Characteristics of the Territory

Brazil has 8,547,403 square kilometers of territory. It is the world's fourth largest country in terms of contiguous land in the world, exceeded only by Russia, China and Canada. It is the same size as Europe, excluding Russia. Of these 8.5 million square kilometers of territory, the Amazon accounts for nearly 5 million -- or 59% -- and is almost ten times the size of France. The Amazon rainforest itself covers 3.45 million square kilometers, more than 40% of the country's total area.

Brazil is a country that possesses almost every type of topography, soil and climate. It contains the planet's largest water basin, river (the Amazon), tropical rainforest and ecosystem (the Pantanal of Mato Grosso). It is a territory that extends above and below the Equator. The rural landholdings registered by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) have some 350 million hectares of productive agricultural land.

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2.2 Rural Production

In 1996, Brazil's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was US$750 billion. It could reach US$1 trillion by the turn of the century. Agriculture accounted for 12% of GDP. The service sector represents more than half of GDP, and industry nearly 30%. Grain production increased from 58 million tons in 1984-85 to an estimated 81.18 million tons in 1996-97. Meat production in 1996 was 11 million tons, of which 5.6 million were beef and 4.5 million were poultry.

In 1996, Brazilian exports totaled US$47.7 billion. Of this, US$17.9 billion came from the sale of farm products. Soybeans (23.19 million tons in 1995-96), corn (32.43 million tons), rice (10 million tons), wheat (3.2 million tons) and beans (3 million tons) are the principal grains produced in Brazil.

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2.3 The Demographic Phenomenon

According to the latest population sampling, conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics in 1995, the Brazilian population totaled 152 million -- the fifth largest in the world after China, India, Russia and the United States. Of this total, 120 million are urban and 32 million are rural.

Brazil experienced one of the most rapid urbanization processes in modern history. In 1950, 70% of the population lived in rural areas; today, a little over 20% are in rural areas. This accelerated rural exodus, which continued until the beginning of the 1990s, has virtually stopped in 1995. Since 1992, Brazil's largest urban centers have practically ceased to grow and the rural population is stabilizing, with a small increase in the number of persons who are 10 years of age or older. One-fifth of the population lives in cities with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. On the other hand, medium-sized cities in Brazil's interior are experiencing record population growth, which indicates a trend toward a more balanced spatial distribution of the population.

TABLE 2

Birth and infant mortality rates are falling sharply. Life expectancy is increasing and the population is aging: it is estimated that, by the year 2000, the country will have more than 13 million people over the age of 65.