The world’s fifth-largest country, it covers 47% of the South American continent’s surface and extends about 7 500 km along the Atlantic coast. Owing to its size, its physical characteristics vary enormously, as do climate, vegetation and land-use patterns. Accordingly, it is typically divided into six large terrestrial ecosystems, or biomes:14 Amazon, Cerrado, Caatinga, Atlantic Forest, Pantanal and Pampa (Box 4.1). The Atlantic Forest and Cerrado biomes are two of the world’s 35 biodiversity hotspots (Chapter 4). Brazil also has vast coastal and marine areas: it hosts rich coral reef ecosystems and has the world’s largest contiguous area of mangroves. Extension of agriculture and cattle farming, natural resource extraction, and infrastructure and development are the most significant causes of habitat loss (Figure 1.13).