Roraima

Federal territory in northern Brazil, bordered by Venezuela in the north and Guyana in the east; area 230,100 sq km/88,842 sq mi; population (1996) 247,131. The capital is Boa Vista. Lying in the highlands to the north of the Amazon Basin, the terrain of Roraima consists mainly of tropical rainforest. Some cattle are grazed on patches of wooded savannah. The River Branco flows north–south through the centre of the territory to join the Río Negro, an important tributary of the Amazon.

Gold prospecting created a boom in the economy of Roraima in the early 1990s, but increasing conflict with indigenous peoples of the rainforest, such as the Yanamami Indians, who represent about one-third of the remaining Indians who inhabit the Amazon, led to the wholesale expulsion of prospecters by the Brazilian government.