Brazil is a large country that correspondingly can have a very diverse landscape. Its notable features include its varying types of flora and often reddish, clay like soil. The areas containing this distinctly reddish soil are mainly in the north of the country and regions around Goias. The north-east of Brazil tends to have a lighter coloured soil with little flora. The more densely rain-forested region of Brazil is to the west of the country as well as near Rio de Janeiro. The southern part of the country is quite similar to Argentina and features people with fairer complexions. This part of Brazil also more commonly has large, grass fields. The petrol/gas stations in Brazil are often the company known as ‘Petrobras’ and they have a green, orange and white sign.
The back of Brazilian signs are coloured black. Brazilian utility poles most commonly have large indents, are narrower near the top and contain a number of vertically aligned small, drilled holes. The most common type of polse is also wider at the base and narrower at the top. Brazil is one of the few places where Portuguese is spoken, this makes Brazil easier to identify since most of South America speaks Spanish. The Brazilian landscape is exceptionally varied due to the sheer size of the country, but almost the entire country is flat (with gentle rises) which contrasts many other South American countries. The north-eastern parts of Brazil are very dry. Cars in Brazil have rather large license plates that are white and resemble the size of European license plate. If you spot a large satellite dish in South America then there is a good chance you are in Brazil. The Satellite dishes usually face towards the equator, so this can help determining how far north or south you are in Brazil.
Brazilian houses come in wide range of styles. They are made from various materials, can have virtually every style of roof and can come in a range of colours. The Brazilian state of Acre (in the far west) stands out thanks to its houses typically being wooden and on short stilts.
In Brazil, trucks, buses and taxis have distinctive red license plates. The list of Brazilian area codes for phone numbers can be useful to pinpoint the area within Brazil as many businesses and signs contain these.

Licence plates in Brazil were white until 2018. Now, a white license plate with a blue stripe on top is used. Red license plates are still used for commercial vehicles.

Portuguese is spoken in Brazil, as opposed to most Latin American countries which speak Spanish. Compared to Spanish, some essential differences are that Portuguese uses -ão rather than -ón, -ch instead of -ll and -nh instead of -ñ. Portuguese also has the ‘Ç’ symbol whilst Spanish doesn’t and many words in Portuguese end in ‘ção’. Finally, Portuguese has the symbol ã which is an ‘a’ with a squiggle on its top.

Soil in Brazil can range from a light pink around Mato Grosso to a deep maroon near the Paraná river. The soil is usually not red in the North East, or in the majority of Rio Grande do Sul, however.

The nearby Argentine province of Misiones has deep red soil, as well a handful of other countries and regions around the world.

The most common poles in Brazil have some resemblance to a ladder in the bottom portion. They are rectangular, have long segments running through the bottom, and small holes near the top.


Blue road markers with the road number and kilometre can be seen on the sides of roads.

Brazil uses yellow on black chevrons, as opposed to most of South America, which use black on yellow chevrons.

Roads in Brazil will usually feature double yellow middle lines, with white outer lines. Roads can occasionally have a single dashed yellow line.

There are frequently white painted kerbs on Brazilian roads.

Many houses throughout Brazil have orange tiled roofs.

Blue Fortlev water tanks are often seen on Brazilian roofs.



Road Lines:

Brazil, like most of the Western Hemisphere, uses a yellow divider and white shoulder lines.

Road Signs:

The green signs seem to point to towns and villages.

The blue signs seem to point to administrative regions, politicians, or other important information about the region or town. You’ll find the highway signs that point to a hotel or a restaurant in blue as well.

There are also white signs that just carry general information on them.
Warning signs in Brazil have the American yellow diamond-shaped style.

The stop signs in Brazil say PARE, just like in all other South American countries:

The roadside turn warning arrows are either yellow with a black background or black with a yellow background:

Road signs on Brazilian highways can often be bigger than the usual signs.


Overhanging signs with bent poles are very common in Brazil, they point the way either to the nearest cities and roads, or parts of cities if found within a city.

The road sign poles can be black, white, brown or metallic.

Electricity poles:

Common Brazilian electricity poles have slim indentations or steps, and sometimes can even have circular holes inside them.

License plates:

Brazil has a light grey plate that appears white when blurred.

However, from 2019 on, they changed the design to include this blue bar on the top (the Mercosul plate):


Specific Plants:

The Paraná pine is a very distinctive-looking tree which grows mostly in the Brazilian states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, but can also be found in Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo, and thus is very useful for pinpointing your location within the country.

Forests can be found in many parts of Brazil and the area around Belém features oil palm plantations.

In Western Brazil, a lot of the houses are made out of wood, and can sometimes be raised on stilts. Many of the roofs are metal sheets. There are also a lot red brick houses and some pastel colored houses.

In Northeast Brazil, Houses typically have white walls and orange/red tiled roofs which are often of a lower quality. There are some pastel colored houses with poor quality roofs as well, and occasionally some red brick buildings.

Southern Brazil has two main house styles: he first style is white or pastel concrete walls with red or cream colored tiled roofs of a higher quality/well-kept and the second style has solid colored concrete walls (usually blue or green) with dark brown tiled roofs.

