Brazilian Amazon

Amazônia Legal (Portuguese pronunciation: [amaˈzonjɐ leˈɡaw], Legal Amazon) is the largest socio-geographic division in Brazil, containing all 9 states in the Amazon basin. The region was created in 1948 based on studies of the Brazilian government on how to plan the economic and social development of the Amazon region.

It is officially designated to encompass all seven states of the North Region (Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and ), as well as part of Mato Grosso in the Center-West Region and most of Maranhão in the Northeast Region. Amazonia Legal is a 5,016,136.3Km2 region with around 24 million inhabitants, in other words 59% of Brazil is part of Amazonia Legal but only 12,34% of the Brazilian population lives there. The administrative unit was initially established by Federal Law No. 5.173 (Art. 2).

Although called Amazonia Legal the region has three different biomes, all Brazil's Amazon biome, 37% of the Cerrado biome and 40% of the Pantanal biome The main characteristic of the region is the abundant and tropical vegetation, including large sections of rainforest.

A total population of 24.7 million inhabitants lives in the area, including more than 300,000 Indians belonging to more than 170 ethnicities and many traditional extractive communities.

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