Brazilian States Trivia Quiz

Answer: Acre

Though the territory of Rio Branco as the state of Acre was then called was Brazil's last territorial expansion there have been five other territories that attained statehood after Acre: Guanabara, Rondônia, Roraima, Amapá and Tocantins. Of these Guanabara is no longer a state having merged with Rio de Janeiro back in 1973.

At that time when I had only three years of statehood and all the other afore mentioned were still territories or parts of other states.

Answer: Bahia

My capital is Salvador, the largest metropolis in the northeast of Brazil and a magnet for tourists.

Answer: Tocantins

My capital city - Palmas - is still being installed. Although the northern half of me borders on the Amazonian rain forest, the rest of me, where most of the people live is a dry high plateau. So I'm a Centro-Oeste (MidWest) State rather than a Norte (Northern) one. My criminality rate is the second lowest in the country. But my HDI according to the UN is also in the bottom 5.

Answer: Sao Paulo

Over 40 million is my resident population, about half of which in the SP Metro Area. Once famous for my coffee plantations (still the world's number one producer, though not exporter) I have now added cattle ranches and huge orange juice facilities to my primary sector. But what I produce and export mostly are motor vehicles; airplanes; and computer and telecommunications hardware.

Answer: Rio de Janeiro

It's not all about the beaches and the bossa nova music. Inland from the capital there's Petropolis, the summer retreat of Brazil's Emperors. Offshore the state produces 75% of Brazil's oil needs. Near the beautiful colonial town of Angra are Brazil's first two nuclear power stations.

Answer: Santa Catarina

My capital is Florianopolis, but Blumenau and Joinville (both founded by German immigrants) have larger populations and are more industrialized.
I'm also the state that receives most foreign tourists from South American countries. I have wonderful beaches, but I'm famous in Brazil as the state where "it snows every year", though if truth were told the same also happens in Rio Grande do Sul, my southern neighbor.

Answer: Rio Grande do Norte

During WWII the Americans had an AFB near Natal, my capital - so named as it was first sighted by Portuguese explorers on Christmas Day (Dia de Natal).

Answer: Mato Grosso

My name literally means "Thick Bush". I have many mineral resources, but few human ones, being one of the most sparsely populated units of the federation. Eco-Tourism is starting to make a positive impact, but the slash-and-burn agriculture still practised in the rain forest have only come under (some) control in recent years.

Answer: Rio Grande do Sul

Along my southern border with Uruguay a strange dialect can sometimes be heard. It's been dubbed Portunhol as it combines words from Portuguese and Spanish. But the major immigrant groups that helped to develop the state were actually of Italian and Portuguese extraction, with a smattering of Germans, Lebanese, Jews, Syrian and Japanese. Dialects of Italian and German are still spoken, but they are confined mostly to elderly people in small rural communities.

The same is true, to a lesser extent, of Japanese and Yiddish.

Answer: Minas Gerais

My name simply means "General Mines". My capital is Belo Horizonte ("Beautiful Horizon") and I am the second state in population (slightly over 18 million). I'm also the state in Brazil with more World Heritage Sites as classified by UNESCO, though tourism is not a major component of my economy... yet.