ABSTRACT
By almost any standard, Brazil is the giant of Latin America. In land area, it is larger than the continental United States. In terms of development, it ranges from the nearly uninhabited rain forest of the Amazon to the city of greater Sao Paulo with some 12 million inhabitants. Of its total population of over 130 million Brazilians about 60 to 65 percent live in urban communities, a figure that is growing at a rate of 2 to 2.5 percent each year. Today Brazil is a nation very much in transition.
