Brazil is a country of continental proportions. Brazil is larger than the continental United States (without Alaska and Hawaii).   For hundreds of years, Brazil has symbolized the great escape into a primordial, tropical paradise, igniting the Western imagination like no other South American country. From the mad passion of Carnival to the immensity of the lush Amazon, Brazil is a country of mythic proportions. Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest country, occupying almost half of the South American continent and bordering every country in it except for Chile and Ecuador. Much of Brazil is scarcely populated, although some regions with previously low population densities, such as the Amazon, are being rapidly settled, logged, and depleted. Brazil can be divided into four major geographic regions. The long, narrow Atlantic seaboard; the large highlands called- the Planalto Brasileiro- the Paraguay Basin, characterized by open forest and scrubland, and the densely forested Amazon Basin. The 3890-mile long Amazon is the world’s largest river and the Amazon Rain Forest contains 30% of the world’s remaining forest.