Northeast Region, Brazil
The Northeast Region of Brazil is one of the five official and political regions of the country according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Of Brazil's twenty-six states, it comprises nine: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, along with the Fernando de Noronha archipelago.
Chiefly known as Nordeste in Brazil, this region was the first to be colonized by the Portuguese and other European peoples, playing a crucial role in the country's history. Nordeste's dialects and rich culture, including its folklore, cuisines, music and literature, became the most easily distinguishable across the country. To this day, Nordeste is known for its history and culture, as well as for its natural environment and its hot weather.
Nordeste stretches from the Atlantic seaboard in the northeast and southeast, northwest and west to the Amazon Basin and south through the Espinhaço highlands in southern Bahia. It encloses the São Francisco River and drainage basin, which were instrumental in the exploration, settlement and economic development of the region. The region lies entirely within the earth's tropical zone and encompasses Caatinga, Atlantic Forest and part of the Cerrado ecoregions. The climate is hot and semi-arid, varying from xeric in Caatinga, to mesic in Cerrado and hydric in the Atlantic Forest. The Northeast Region represents 18% of Brazilian territory, has a population of 57 million people, 28% of the total population of the country, and contributes 14.2% of Brazil's GDP. Nearly three quarters of the population live in urban areas clustered along the Atlantic coast and about 15 million people live in the hinterland. It is an impoverished region: 43.5% of the population lives in poverty, defined as less than $2/day.
The capital of each state including the states of Salvador, Recife, Fortaleza and São Luís is its largest city; those four capitals are coastal cities with a population of more than one million. Nordeste has nine international airports, and the region has the second largest number of passengers in Brazil.
Geography
''Zona da Mata'' ("Forest Zone")
The Zona da Mata comprises the rainforest zones of Nordeste in the humid eastern coast, where the region's largest capital cities are also located. The forest area was much larger before suffering from centuries of deforestation and exploration. For many years, sugar cane cultivation in this region was the mainstay of Brazil's economy, being superseded only when coffee production developed in the late 19th century. Sugar cane is cultivated on large estates whose owners maintain tremendous political influence.''Agreste''
Since the escarpment does not generate any further rainfall on its slopes from the lifting of the trade winds, annual rainfall decreases steadily inland. After a relatively short distance, there is no longer enough rainfall to support tropical rainforest, especially since the rainfall is extremely erratic from year to year. This transitional zone is known as the agreste and because it is located on the steep escarpment, was not generally used whilst flatter land was abundant. Today, with irrigation water available, however, the agreste, as its name suggest, is a major farming region. Despite containing no major city, it contains well developed medium large cities such as Caruaru, Campina Grande and Arapiraca.''Sertão'' ("Backlands")
In Portuguese, the word sertão first referred to the vast hinterlands of Asia and South America that Lusitanian explorers encountered. In Brazil, the geographical term referred to backlands away from the Atlantic coastal regions where the Portuguese first settled in South America in the early sixteenth century.Geographically, the Sertão consists mainly of low uplands that form part of the Brazilian Highlands. Most parts of the sertão are between 200 and 500 meters above sea level, with higher elevations found on the eastern edge in the Planalto da Borborema, where it merges into a sub-humid region known as agreste, in the Serra da Ibiapaba in western Ceará and in the Serro do Periquito of central Pernambuco. In the north, the Sertão extends to the northern coastal plains of Rio Grande do Norte state, whilst in the south it fades out in the northern fringe of Minas Gerais.
Because the Sertão lies close to the equator, temperatures remain nearly uniform throughout the year and are typically tropical, often extremely hot in the west. However, the sertão is distinctive in its low rainfall compared to other areas of Brazil. Because of the relatively cool temperatures in the South Atlantic Ocean, the Intertropical Convergence Zone remains north of the region for most of the year. Consequently, conditions are very dry for most of the year.
Although annual rainfall averages between 500 and 800 millimeters over most of the sertão and 1300 millimeters on the northern coast of Fortaleza, it is confined to a short rainy season. This season extends from January to April in the west, but in the eastern Sertão it generally occurs from March to June. However, rainfall is extremely erratic and in some years the rains are minimal, leading to catastrophic drought. The duration of droughts has increased over the last 36 years, with the 2012–2016 drought being the longest drought in the region's history. Because of this vulnerability to the climate, Sertão is also known as a "polygon of drought." Due to global warming, more frequent, more severe and longer droughts are estimated to hit the region over the next 90 years. Despite the increasing severity of the droughts, Brazil has become increasingly able to mitigate the negative social impacts associated with drought.
While generally successful in helping those enduring drought, drought relief programs have historically resulted in a so-called indústria da seca. The term, coined by Antônio Callado, describes the phenomenon wherein local politicians use droughts as a tool to increase their electoral chances, effectively "trading drought relief for votes." This misappropriation of funds often benefits the wealthy—especially private landowners—to the detriment of the rural poor.
''Meio-Norte'' ("Midnorth")
Meio-Norte is a transition area between the high rainfalls region of Amazon rainforest and the semi arid region of Sertão covering the state of Maranhão and half of Piauí.Hydrology
The Northeast region comprises the drainage basins of the São Francisco, Canindé, and Parnaíba Rivers.Geology and topography
Geographically, Nordeste consists chiefly of an eroded continental craton with many low hills and small ranges. The highest peaks are around in Bahia, while further north there are no peaks above. On its northern and western side, the plateaus fall steadily to the coast and into the basin of the Tocantins River in Maranhão, but on the eastern side it falls off quite sharply to the coast except in the valley of the São Francisco river. The steep slopes and long cliffs of the eastern coastline are known as "The Great Escarpment".The escarpment serves an extremely important climatic function because for most of the year, Nordeste is out of reach of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. The easterly trade winds blow across the region and bring abundant rainfall to the coast but producing clear, dry conditions inland where the escarpment blocks moisture flow. This gives rise to four distinct regions, the zona da mata on the coast, the agreste on the escarpment, sertão beyond and the Mid north.
History
Before the arrival of Europeans, Nordeste was inhabited by indigenous peoples, mostly speaking languages of the Tupi–Guarani family. In the Sertão region, Tapuia tribes could also be found. It was the first area of Brazil to be colonized when roughly 1,500 Portuguese arrived on April 22, 1500, under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral at Porto Seguro, in what is now the state of Bahia.File:Olinda e Recife.PNG|thumb|left|Olinda with Recife in the background. Olinda was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982.The coast of Nordeste saw the first economic activity of the country, namely the extraction and export of pau Brasil, or brazilwood. Indigenous peoples helped Europeans with the extraction of brazilwood in exchange for spices. They also engaged in an exchange of goods, trading things like animal skins for knives and other valuables. Brazilwood was highly valued in Europe where it was used to make violin bows and for the red dye it produced. Countries like France, which disagreed with the Treaty of Tordesillas, launched many attacks on the coast to steal the wood.
Soon after their arrival, Portuguese settlers began to displace native peoples and enslave them as field laborers, leading to conflicts in which many natives died. These conflicts were one contributor to the decline of the indigenous population, which intensified as colonization, commercial interest, and disease escalated in the region. After resistance from indigenous peoples and opposition to their enslavement from the Jesuits, the Portuguese colonials began importing black African slaves in 1530, largely to Bahia.
In 1552, the seat of the first Catholic bishop of Brazil was established in Nordeste.
French colonists not only tried to settle in present-day Rio de Janeiro, from 1555 to 1567, but also in present-day São Luís, from 1612 to 1614. The Dutch, also opposed to the Treaty of Tordesillas, plundered Nordeste's coast, sacked Bahia in 1604, and even temporarily captured Salvador, which had been Brazil's first capital and general seat of government since 1549. However, the Portuguese soon regained control of Salvador, and the Dutch were unable to recapture it, despite repeated attempts.
In 1630, the Dutch captured Pernambuco and made Recife their capital. By 1640, they had set up more permanently in Nordeste and controlled a long stretch of coast that was most accessible to Europe without, however, penetrating the interior. The colonists of the Dutch West India Company in Brazil were under constant siege despite the presence in Recife of John Maurice of Nassau as governor. To help fight the Portuguese, the WIC sought the support of native peoples. By 1635, the majority of Tupi, mostly from Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba, had given their support to the Dutch, as they viewed the Portuguese as more brutal and believed that they would be better off if the Dutch remained in Brazil. The military aid provided by the Tupi population proved to be useful in 1645, when Portuguese colonists who had remained in Dutch-controlled territory began to revolt. Tupi mediators such as Poty and Paraupaba were instrumental in maintaining strong Dutch-Tupi relations during the struggle against the Portuguese. At the end of 1653, the Portuguese succeeded in capturing Recife, effectively ending Dutch Brazil and culminating in their surrender in 1654.
File:Salvador-CCBY-5.jpg|right|thumb|The historic centre of Salvador, Bahia, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.
Slave resistance began during the colonial era, in the 17th century, and eventually led to the formation of quilombos, or settlements of runaway and free-born African slaves. The Quilombo dos Palmares, the largest and most well-known of these settlements, was founded around 1600 in the Serra da Barriga hills, in the present state of Alagoas. Palmares, at the height of its power, was an independent, self-sustaining republic, hosting a population of over 30,000 free African men, women and children. There were over 200 buildings in the community, a church, four smithies, and a council house. Although Palmares managed to defend itself from the Dutch military and the Portuguese colonials for several decades, it was finally taken and destroyed and its leader Zumbi dos Palmares was captured and beheaded. His head was then displayed in a public plaza in Recife.
Although the king of Portugal had abolished the enslavement of native peoples in 1570, it continued until the Marquis of Pombal declared them to be 'free men' in 1755. However, by that time the practice was already rare. Salvador remained the colonial capital until 1763 when it was succeeded by Rio de Janeiro, the new economic power center of that era. In 1850, the Eusébio de Queirós Law was passed, abolishing the international slave trade in Brazil. Following the ban, some slaves from Nordeste were sold to the Southeast region of Brazil, primarily to the state of Rio de Janeiro. The percentage of slaves in Salvador dropped from 41.6% of the population in 1775 to 27.5% in 1855.
Between 1877 and 1879, a large part of the sertão was hit by the most severe drought in Brazilian history, known as the Great Drought, with Ceará being the hardest hit region. As a result, thousands of Nordestinos migrated to other parts of Brazil, especially to the Amazon, and about 200,000 people died. Before the rise of Sudeste, Nordeste was the center of the African slave trade in Brazil, the center of the sugar industry in Brazil, and Brazil's main seaport.