What is the Special in Brazil?

Sao Paulo has some of the world’s worst traffic jams. According to Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego, the city's traffic management agency, a congestion record was set on November 15, 2013, with a total of 309 kilometres (192 mi) of queues around the city during the evening rush hour.

Sao Paulo has the largest economy by GDP of any city in the Southern Hemisphere (and 11th overall). For the best views of the skyscraper-studded metropolis, head to highest floor of the Edificio Italia (www.edificioitalia.com.br), the tallest building in the city centre at 46 stories.

The Amazon River is the world’s largest by volume of water discharged. Around 209,000 cubic metres per second flow into the Atlantic Ocean – more than the next seven largest rivers combined and enough to fill Lake Baikal – the world’s deepest lake – in less than four years. During the wet season the river is up to 30 miles wide.

The statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro weighs 635 tonnes, is 38 metres high including its pedestal and was named one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World” in 2007. It was damaged by a lightning strike in 2014.

Brazil has more than 4,000 airports – more than any other country other than the US (which has a remarkable 13,513).

According to a 2007 report, there are at least 70 uncontacted tribes in the Brazilian Amazon.

Brazil has 21 Unesco World Heritage Sites. Among the best known is the Iguacu National Park, home to one of the world’s largest and most impressive waterfalls at 1.7 miles wide and with a total of 275 drops. It is also occupied by several rare and endangered species, among them the giant otter and the giant anteater.

Among the newest are the Pampulha Modern Ensemble, a garden city project by Oscar Niemeyer, added by Unesco in 2016, and the Valongo Wharf Archaeological Site, inscribed in 2017.

Some 1.5 million-2.5 million Brazilians are of Japanese descent. Many immigrants brought with them seedlings of cherry trees and cherry blossoms can be viewed outside homes in Sao Paulo, and in public parks in Curitiba.

Around 6.4 million tourists visit Brazil each year, one of the fewest of any country in the world as a percentage of its total population. Half of them head to Rio.

Manaus is located in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, but is home to more than 2.5 million people. Rubber made it South America’s richest city in the late 1800s and lured many wealthy Europeans. The Teatro Amazonas is one of its most notable buildings, and was opened in 1896.

The world’s largest open-air garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, was once found in the Brazilian city of Duque de Caxias. It closed in 2012.

Brazil is one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, with a total of four million plant and animal species, according to estimates. It has more species of monkey than any other nation.

Rio de Janeiro became a World Heritage Site in 2012. Its annual Carnival attracts around 2 million revellers each day.

With 82 per cent of its population tracing their ancestry back to the sorry days of slavery, Salvador is described as “the biggest African city outside Africa”.

Henry Ford spent huge amounts of money trying to create rubber plantations and factories in the middle of the Amazon jungle. A town built in imitation of the American Midwest, and called, modestly, Fordlandia, grew up on the shores of the Tapajos river. The remains of his ultimately shattered dream can still be seen.

Other strange abandoned sites are the Viaduct Petrobras – a stretch of elevated road in the middle of the jungle and part of the Rio-Santos Highway until plans were altered – and the Terra Encantada theme park, closed due to safety concerns.

Fishermen in Laguna, in the southeast of Brazil, are able to use dolphins to help them catch dinner. The animals will herd fish towards waiting nets, even flicking their head to indicate that the trap has been set.

The practice has been going on for generations, the fishermen say, but was only recently been reported by Western media.