sertão
sertão [Port.,=backlands], semiarid hinterland of NE Brazil; c.250,000 sq mi (647,500 sq km). Its characteristic landscape is the caatinga, or thorny scrub forest. The chief occupation of the region is stock raising. The sertão area, in the "polygon of drought," covers parts of the states of Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe, and Bahia. The periodic droughts have caused large-scale migrations to the Amazon basin and to the urban centers of SE Brazil. Official reclamation activities began in the early 20th cent., and were intensified in the 1950s and 60s with the construction of numerous dams and hydroelectric projects, especially on the São Francisco River. In the 1960s a successful extensive regional economic development program was begun there. The area remains a focal point of social unrest. Its harsh and picturesque history, peopled by leather-garbed cowboys, bandits ( cangaceiros ), and religious fanatics, has been a source of inspiration for numerous Brazilian writers (notably Euclides da Cunha).
Bibliography: See B. J. Chandler, The Feitosas and the Sertão dos Inhamuns (1972); K. Webb, The Changing Face of Northeast Brazil (1974).
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São Francisco
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
...km) long, rising in the Serra de Canastra, SW Minas Gerais state, Brazil, and flowing northeast, then southeast through the sertão region of E Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean. The river's flow varies with the season. The São Francisco, an ancient river that...
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Paraíba
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
...Ocean. The capital is João Pessoa . The state extends inland from the Atlantic to the semiarid plateau of the interior (the sertão ). The economy is largely agricultural; although cattle-breeding remains the principal activity, more and more pastures have...
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Brazilian literature
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
...concern with the Brazilian interior has been continued by writers such as João Guimarães Rosa , whose poetic novel Grande sertão: veredas appeared in 1956 (tr. 1963). At the same time, the more subjective trend continued with, among others, novelists Rachel...
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Brazil
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
...formerly supporting the sugarcane plantations and now given over to diversified subtropical crops) and a semiarid interior, or sertão , subject to recurrent droughts. This region has been the object of vigorous reclamation efforts by the government. The bulge...
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