THE North region do Brasil is the largest region in Brazil, corresponding to 45.27% of the national territory. It is the least inhabited in the country and contributes a smaller percentage to the national GDP and population. It comprises the states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins.
Its demographic density is the lowest in Brazil, considering all regions of the country, with only 3.8 inhabitants per km2. Most of the population is centered in urban areas.
Belém International Airport and Manaus International Airport connect the North Region with many Brazilian cities and also operate some international flights.
The North is home to the Federal University of Amazonas and the Federal University of Pará.
The first inhabitants of the North Region, as in the rest of Brazil, were native Brazilians, who shared a diverse number of tribes and villages, from the pre-Columbian period to the arrival of the people European.
The Spaniards, including Francisco de Orellana, organized exploratory expeditions along the Amazon River to discover the region. After long journeys with Francisco de Orellana, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and Valdés wrote a letter addressed to Cardinal Pedro Bembo in Venice, extolling the fauna and flora existing in the region at the time of expedition.
The 17th century marked the arrival of the Portuguese people, where they built military fortresses to defend the region against invasion by other peoples, in 1616, causing the foundation of Belém do Pará. The richness of the Amazon Forest also became interesting for the Portuguese Crown. With Portuguese explorers, Catholic missionaries arrived in the region to catechize the indigenous people. The natives were gathered by missionaries in villages, called missions, many of which gave rise to various cities, such as Borba and Óbidos.
To work in rubber extraction, Brazilians from other states, mainly from the Northeast region, moved to the region. Also many Japanese families came to work in the agricultural colonies.
During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, military governments implemented a grand plan to integrate the region with other regions of Brazil, including the construction of several highways (such as the Transamazon Highway), the installation of industries and the creation of the Free Economic Zone of Manaus.
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Riparian houses in the state of Pará.
The territorial division into countries does not necessarily coincide with the indigenous occupation of geographic space; in many cases, there are people living on both sides of international borders, who were created long after they were already in the region.
From the beginning of colonization in the 17th century to the present day, the inhabitants of the Amazon dedicated themselves to activities extractivists and mercantilists, inserting between 1840 and 1910 the rubber monopoly, mainly in Amazonas and Acre. This entire colonization process brought changes such as the reduction of the indigenous population, the increase in identity Caboclo, the mixture of whites, blacks and indigenous people, the reduction of plant and animal species and others consequences.
After World War II, the Brazilian Amazon became part of the national development process. The creation of the National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA) in 1952, the establishment of regional development bodies such as the Superintendency of Development of the Amazon (SUDAM) in 1966 and the Free Economic Zone of Manaus in 1967 began to contribute to the settlement of the region and the execution of projects focused on the region.
Climate classification for northern Brazil.
The Amazon represents more than half of the planet's remaining forests and comprises the largest and richest stretch of rainforest in the world. Tropical rainforests are the most species-rich biome, and the rainforests of the Americas are consistently richer in species than the rainforests of Africa and Asia. As the largest expanse of rainforest in the Americas, the Amazon rainforests have unparalleled biodiversity. More than 1/3 of all species in the world live in the Amazon rainforest. The region is home to around 2.5 million species of insects, tens of thousands of plants and around 2000 species of birds and mammals. To date, at least 40,000 species of plants, 3,000 fish, 1,294 birds, 427 mammals, 428 amphibians and 378 reptiles have been scientifically classified in the region. Scientists have described between 96,660 and 128,843 invertebrate species in Brazil alone.
The diversity of plant species is the highest on Earth, with some experts estimating that a square kilometer can contain more than 75,000 types of trees and 150,000 species of plants superiors. One square kilometer of the Amazon rainforest can contain around 90,790 tons of living plants. This constitutes the largest collection of living plants and animal species in the world. One in five birds in the world lives in the rainforests of the Amazon. To date, an estimated 438,000 plant species of economic and social interest have been recorded in the region, with much more to be discovered or catalogued.
Some latitudes can create a region with hot, humid climates. The existence of heat and the huge liquid mass favor evaporation, making the region a very humid area.
Dominated by the equatorial climate, the region has high temperatures throughout the year (averages from 24 °C to 26 °C), low temperature range, with the exception of a few areas of the states of Amazonas, Rondônia and Acre, where the phenomenon of “cooling” occurs curs, due to the activity of La Niña, allowing the cold air masses coming from the South Atlantic Ocean penetrate the southern states of the country, pass through the Midwest and reach the Amazon states, causing a rapid drop in temperature.
The Amazon heat provides a low-latitude area that attracts polar air masses. Occurring in winter, the effect of the cold lasts about a week.
The population of northern Brazil is largely made up of caboclos, descendants of native Brazilians and Europeans – mainly Portuguese, French and Spanish.
The north of Brazil received and continues to receive a large migration of people from the South and Southeast regions of the country. In the 20th century, it also received a large migration from the Northeast, who worked in the rubber plantations of Amazonas and Acre.
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