Brazil is a federation that consists of twenty-six states and one federal district. The biggest majority of Brazil's population belongs to the Christian religion and almost all of them are Catholics. This is something Brazil inherited  being Portugal's colony . Historically, the country was a colony claimed by people from Portugal and this made Portuguese the official language. The Portuguese reached Brazil in 1500 and until that moment it was inhabited by semi-nomadic  people. The Portuguese changed Brazil into a country of slaves until 1800, when Maria I of Portugal came to live in Brazil. The Queen did not stay long in Brazil, but during the 20 years of royal presence a lot of changes occurred: commercial ports to United Kingdom were opened; Brazil stopped being isolated  from other countries. So at the moment of getting the independence on the 7th of September, 1822, Brazil already had the potential to develop. The Brazilian Empire, Pedro I, abolished slavery in 1888 in the face of Princess Isabel. A lot of European people started coming to Brazil and the industry of the country started working. In the 19th and the 20th century as it has been said above foreign people immigrated  to Brazil and basically 5 million European and Japanese people became the residents of Brazil. The beginning of the 20th century was especially marked by the immigration of a lot of Asian people: Japanese, Korean and Chinese immigrants. As a matter of fact Japanese people do not immigrate a lot, and the fact that the Brazilian-Japanese people are the largest Japanese minority in the world does astonish greatly. The majority of the cultural inherits of Brazil are actually Portuguese, due to the fact that Brazil was Portugal's colony for a very long time. The southern states mainly consist of European population and the north and the northeast consist of a mixed population including Africans, Amerindians and Europeans. Most of this population is Roman Catholic. No other country in the world has the same amount of Catholics. The modern tendency of Brazil is the growing number of people calling themselves Protestants. Around 7.4% of the population don't believe any god. Some Brazilians, especially in the northern states are mixed Africans who prefer following the traditional African religions. Only 1.8% of the population chose Buddhism, Islam or Judaism. Though Brazil always tried to maintain democracy, it was failed several times by the dictatorship  of Getulo Vargas. This fact could not affect the political situation in the country. The writer mainly tells us the   _   of Brazil in the passage.
religion history culture political situation