It may be helpful for you 1st word people to know this :

• Brazil 3 southern states - safer than most European countries (absolutely no terrorism or refugees crisis, HDI higher than most EU and Eastern Europe countries, good infrastructure, water and environment in general very clean and healthy, low criminality)

• Rio - worse than Somalia (current dengue and zika virus epidemics, 85% of the city controled by drug dealers, ubiquitous robbery at downtown shown on TV news every day, filthy city with dejects and garbage smell every 200 meters)

• for some economical interests probably, the mass media have been fooling people of fancy 1st world for decades with the idea that Rio is Brazil and vice-versa, that there are snakes all around the country and the whole population use Carnival costumes. Every time Brazil is mentioned, there goes Rio images. This is so stupid as believing that Detroit represents the whole USA, that all Americans dress like cowboys and live like Hamish, and grizzly bears and alligators live together and wander around the whole country.

Remember, the area of Brazil mainland is a bit larger than USA mainland (contiguous USA), but spreading more in the North-South direction instead of West-East : so, Brazil has less timezones but more different climates, and consequently more different land exploiting and human occupation variations. The inequality between wealthiest and poorest areas is like nothing you ever saw.

I hope this helps you to understand how a country with such horrible images of violence and human degradation can be the 7th world economy, ahead of Italy, France, Spain, just to name a few. Imagine if Germany merged with Somalia and indicators showed average numbers, that's the idea.