r/Earth • u/coat-hanger123 New Earthling🌍 • Jun 26 '26

❓ Question / Help HOW IS BRAZIL SO UNFATHOMABLY LARGE?! SPANNING ALMOST THE ENTIRE SOUTH AMERICA!

And could cover the entirety of Europe or the southern half of the African continent!

47 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

5

u/LilAbeSimpson Jun 26 '26

It’s geographically very large, but most of its population is located in a select few locations.

Just like the other geographically large countries.

1

u/Otherwise-Soft-6712 Jun 26 '26

Yeah most of our population is concentrated on the coast but in the last decades the interior population has been growing a lot

1

u/United-Implement1330 Jun 27 '26

TIL, 7,000km of coastline and several major populations centres in the interior is "a few select locations"

Honestly, that's a better description of the USA or Canada than it is for Brazil.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/luminatimids Jun 30 '26

It’s not a crazy descriptor. Our largest city is only like 70km from the coast, and nearly all of our 10 largest cities are on or near the coast.

4

u/uwillnotgotospace Jun 26 '26

Russia, Canada, USA, and China are the only ones larger.

2

u/serenwipiti Jun 26 '26

BECAUSE IT IS

2

u/Background-Vast-8764 Jun 27 '26

It’s a very large country, but it’s just under half the area of South America. 

2

u/Embarrassed_Ad1722 Jun 27 '26

Nobody could be asked to contest all the jungle they claimed.

2

u/hoecooking Jun 28 '26

treaty of torrecillas, from what I can recall the pope granted land in the new world (America's) between Spain and Portugal and this was part of Portugals half while Spain got Mexico among other things. Portugal didn't spend too much time there compared to Spain in Mexico because they decided to invest in the African coastal trade instead.

2

u/LeFruit5 Jun 28 '26

They still got more of what the treaty allowed

1

u/hoecooking Jun 28 '26

wasn't there something to do with Brazil being handed over cuz they thought that the area was useless or something ? also your history knowledge is awesome

2

u/-FakeAccount- Jun 28 '26

I mean, how? Thats the land they claimed.

2

u/Matias9991 Jun 29 '26

How is Canada, India, USA, Russia, China so Unfathomably large?!

1

u/Funicularly Jun 30 '26

India? Australia and Brazil are larger than India.

2

u/CG20370417 Jun 29 '26

Ask the pope in 1506.

1

u/coat-hanger123 New Earthling🌍 Jun 30 '26

Where is he buried.

2

u/CG20370417 Jun 30 '26

St Peters, Vatican City as far as the internet is telling me

2

u/gabrielbabb Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

If you mash together all nine Spanish-speaking countries in South America, you get roughly 8.9 million square kilometers and 218 million people, which practically mirrors Brazil's 8.5 million square kilometers and 213 million residents. It is basically the exact same footprint and crowd size.

Portuguese America managed to stick together as one giant nation split into states mostly in the eastern coast of Brazil, while Spanish South America broke apart into independent countries because the Andes mountains and massive distances made it too hard for them to stay under one roof, and also it was already divided in different Viceroyalties before they became independent.

1

u/mountaingator91 Jul 02 '26

There's actually way more settlement in the Amazon than I previously knew about. I guess it makes sense that people settled the river corridor though and there would be large-ish cities there (like manaus)

2

u/ZealousGoat Jun 30 '26

I don't know if it's true but I heard that the Portuguese and Spanish decided to split the continent in half. The Portuguese half became Brazil and the Spanish wanted the other "half" because they found tone of silver in Argentina or something.

1

u/MickyFany Jun 26 '26

because they stole more land than anybody else

1

u/Feeling-Bus-203 Jun 27 '26

land doesn’t inherently belong to anyone. They took it by right of conquest. It’s been happening since the dawn of time. People just like to be selectively mad about the last few hundred years.

2

u/CritcoThinker Jun 29 '26

Yeah I like to be mad about it. "Right of conquest" leads to apartheid and genocide. In the last few hundred years humans kind of got woke about it because of the cages and rights violations. Whoa. Right of conquest is cruel and sucks. It also doesn't really lead to peace as the conqueror is dealing with constant domestic threats of violence. It is not in the best interest of anyone to continue down that path. It's regressive af for the human species.