Brazil is the South American country whose official language is Portuguese.
Portuguese arrived in Brazil during the Portuguese colonization that began after Pedro Álvares Cabral's expedition reached the coast in 1500. Brazil declared independence from Portugal in 1822, but Portuguese remained the dominant language and developed distinctive Brazilian vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.
Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest Portuguese-speaking country by population. Portuguese is used in government, education, national media, and public life throughout the federation, alongside many Indigenous languages and immigrant-language communities.
Spanish is the dominant official language in most other South American countries, which can make Brazil's linguistic position easy to overlook. Brazil's Portuguese also differs from European Portuguese in sound and usage, though the two varieties remain mutually related.