SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) -- Here are key facts about Brazil, Latin
                  America's largest nation, where 106 million voters on Sunday chose a new
                  president, congressmen and state governors.

                  POPULATION: 157 million (1996 census showed 55.2 percent white,
                  38.2 percent mixed race, 6 percent black, 0.4 percent Asian and 0.2
                  percent indigenous).

                  RELIGION: Christianity (83 percent Catholic, 10 percent Protestant and
                  evangelical, 7 percent members of spiritualist religions, Jewish and
                  Afro-Brazilian religions). Evangelical churches have grown at the expense of
                  the Catholic Church in recent years.

                  OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Portuguese.

                  LITERACY: In 1996, 16 percent of the population aged 5 and older were
                  illiterate.

                  MINIMUM VOTING AGE: 16. Voting is obligatory for citizens aged 18
                  to 65.

                  AREA: 8.547 million square km (3.29 million square miles). Almost half the
                  South American continent. Brazil borders all South American countries
                  except Chile and Ecuador. The Amazon Basin accounts for 60 percent of
                  national territory. Three-quarters of the population live in urban areas.

                  CAPITAL: Brasilia (estimated population 1.82 million). Main cities: Sao
                  Paulo metropolitan area (16 million people), Rio de Janeiro metropolitan
                  area (12 million).

                  ECONOMY: Gross Domestic Product in 1997 stood at $806.6 billion, 3
                  percent more than 1996. Per capita income was $4,987 in 1997.

                  INDUSTRY: Brazil's main industries are agriculture, livestock and mining. It
                  also has Latin America's biggest and the world's fifth-largest automobile
                  market. Leading companies include oil and gas firm Petrobras, iron ore
                  miner Vale do Rio Doce and steelmaker Cia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN).
                  The country's exports totaled $53 billion in 1997 while imports were $61.4
                  billion.

                  INFLATION: Consumer prices in the greater Sao Paulo area, a
                  benchmark for the nation, are expected to post a 1.0 percent rise in 1998,
                  compared to 4.82 percent in 1997 and 3,000 percent in 1994.

                  UNEMPLOYMENT: The official unemployment rate in the first six months
                  of 1998 stood at 7.81 percent, marking the highest jobless rate in 15 years.
                  Labor unions say the real unemployment rate may run twice as high.

                  ARMED FORCES: Total: 314,700 plus 132,000 conscripts. Army:
                  200,000. Navy: 64,700. Air Force: 4,000. Paramilitary: 37,100 in state
                  military forces. (source: International Institute for Strategic Studies)

                  MODERN HISTORY: Brazil gained independence from Portugal in 1822
                  and was ruled by a liberal monarchy until 1889 when it became a republic.

                  Social unrest led to a revolt in 1930 and a right-wing authoritarian
                  government under President Getulio Vargas. Vargas ruled as a populist
                  dictator until a 1945 military coup. He won elections in 1951 but killed
                  himself while in office in 1954. Under President Juscelino Kubitschek,
                  elected in 1956, Brazil began to industrialize under the slogan "Fifty years
                  progress in five." Kubitschek also built Brasilia, the country's capital carved
                  out of a deserted hinterland of the center west.

                  The military returned to power in 1964 in a coup which overthrew elected
                  President Joao Goulart, considered by the armed forces as dangerously left
                  wing after he decreed nationalization programs and radical land reforms.

                  Under a series of military presidents, Brazil enjoyed spectacular economic
                  growth through the late 1960s and early 1970s, much of it financed by heavy
                  borrowing from abroad. But by the time General Joao Figueiredo, the fifth
                  and last military leader, took power in 1979, the boom had fizzled out due to
                  the oil crisis and high international interest rates.

                  In December 1989, Brazil held its first direct presidential election in 29
                  years, picking Fernando Collor de Mello, a former governor of the small
                  northeastern state of Alagoas as leader. At 40, Collor became Brazil's
                  youngest president ever. Collor, who plunged Brazil into its worst recession
                  in half a century, faced impeachment on a string of corruption charges and
                  was replaced by Vice President Itamar Franco, who served the remainder
                  of Collor's term.

                  President Fernando Henrique Cardoso was elected in 1994 after the former
                  sociology professor launched an inflation-fighting program, known as the
                  Real Plan, while he was finance minister for Franco.

                  Cardoso's Real Plan slashed annual inflation to single digits from nearly
                  3,000 percent and boosted spending power among the poor. He is set
                  Sunday to become Brazil's first democratically elected president to finish a
                  full term since the military dictatorship stepped down in 1985.

                  Cardoso could also become Brazil's first re-elected president, having
                  persuaded Congress to rewrite the constitution and allow sitting presidents,
                  state governors and mayors to run for a second term.

                  FAMOUS BRAZILIANS: Writers Paulo Coelho, Machado de Assis and
                  Jorge Amado; entertainer Xuxa (pronounced Shoo-Shah) Meneghel; media
                  tycoon Roberto Marinho; architect Oscar Niemeyer; composers Tom
                  Jobim, Joao Gilberto; singers Maria Bethania, Gal Costa, Chico Buarque,
                  Caetano Velloso, Gilberto Gil; soccer legends Pele, Ronaldo, Romario and
                  Garrincha; race car drivers Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet and Emerson
                  Fittipaldi; actresses Carmen Miranda and Sonia Braga; inventor and pioneer
                  aviator Alberto Santos Dumont; rubbertapper union leader Chico Mendes.

                          Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.