From the longer Wikipedia page [1]
Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil; Portuguese pronunciation: [bɾaˈziw]), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil, About this soundlisten (help·info)), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles)[10] and with over 211 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the sixth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states and the Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas.
Administrative divisions[]
Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states, one federal district, and the 5570 municipalities. States have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent Courts of Law for common justice. Despite this, states have much less autonomy to create their own laws than in the United States. For example, criminal and civil laws can be voted by only the federal bicameral Congress and are uniform throughout the country.[
The states and the federal district may be grouped into regions: Northern, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and Southern. The Brazilian regions are merely geographical, not political or administrative divisions, and they do not have any specific form of government. Although defined by law, Brazilian regions are useful mainly for statistical purposes, and also to define the distribution of federal funds in development projects.
Municipalities, as the states, have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Union and state government.[ Each has a mayor and an elected legislative body, but no separate Court of Law. Indeed, a Court of Law organized by the state can encompass many municipalities in a single justice administrative division called comarca (county).
See also: Regions of Brazil, States of Brazil and Municipalities of Brazil.