Few countries are able to offer as great a variety of tourist options as Brazil. With a land mass the size of a continent - more than 8 million km² - in terms of area, the nation is fifth in the world, exceeded only by Russia, Canada, the USA and China, occupying almost half of South America. The distances from north to south and from east to west - around 4,300 km in each direction - are greater than from New York to Los Angeles and from Moscow to Lisbon. It embraces contrasting ecosystems such as the Amazon Forest and the Pantanal (marshland) with its flood plains teeming with an amazingly rich chain of animal reproduction.