🇧🇷 Natural wonders of Brazil
A country of superlatives — home to most of the Amazon rainforest and the thunderous Iguazú Falls — where the planet's greatest concentration of life meets some of its most dramatic water.
🗓️ Best time for nature: Regional: the Amazon has a flooded season (roughly December–May, best for boat travel) and a drier season (June–November, better for hiking and beaches); Iguazú runs year-round, easiest in the drier winter months.
The lay of the land
Brazil holds an outsized share of the natural world. Most of the Amazon — the largest tropical rainforest on Earth, and perhaps a tenth of all known species — lies within its borders, drained by the Amazon River, the mightiest on the planet by volume. In the south, the Iguazú River tips off a basalt escarpment in a 2.7-kilometre wall of waterfalls. Add the wildlife-rich Pantanal wetlands and a long Atlantic coast, and Brazil is one of Earth's great arks of biodiversity.
Where to begin
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Iguazú Falls
Hundreds of falls across nearly 3 km of rainforest, crowned by the Devil's Throat.
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The Amazon Rainforest
The largest rainforest on Earth, holding a staggering share of its species.
A taste of the place
Brazilian food is as regional as its landscapes: Amazonian specialties like tacacá, tucupi, açaí, and giant river fish (pirarucu, tambaqui) in the north; churrasco (grilled meats) and the shared ritual of the barbecue across the south; and cheese-and-cassava breads like chipá near the Iguazú border. It's a cuisine rooted in Indigenous, African, and European traditions.
Traveling responsibly
- See both sides of Iguazú if you can — Brazil for the panorama, Argentina for the catwalks.
- In the Amazon, choose the season for your goal and go with responsible, community-linked operators.
- Bring insect protection and prepare for tropical heat and humidity.
- Support conservation-minded tourism that benefits local and Indigenous communities.
Brazil is where the living planet shows its full abundance. Most of the Amazon rainforest — the largest on Earth, and home to perhaps one in ten known species — lies within the country, threaded by the Amazon River, which carries more water than any other. To travel it is to grasp both the scale and the fragility of the world’s greatest forest, and to meet the Indigenous and riverine communities whose lives are woven into it.
In the south, at the border with Argentina, the Iguazú River delivers a different kind of spectacle: some 275 waterfalls strung along nearly three kilometres of jungle, culminating in the roaring abyss of the Devil’s Throat. Forest and falls — this atlas begins Brazil’s chapter with the two wonders that best capture a country overflowing with natural life.
All wonders in Brazil
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