[1] The Federal District has the same executive, legislative and judiciary organization as a state, but it cannot be divided into municipalities, which is why its territory is composed of several administrative regions.

These regions are directly managed by the government of the Federal District, which exercises constitutional and legal powers that are equivalent to those of the states, as well as those of the municipalities, thus simultaneously assuming all the obligations arising from them.

It is governed by an administrator-general, appointed by the governor of Pernambuco, and a council whose members are elected by the citizens of the district.

[2] All states and the Federal District are represented in the national congress, each with three senators and between eight and 70 deputies, depending on their population.

After the union ended, Portugal asserted its territorial claims, which Spain eventually accepted with the Treaty of Madrid in 1750.

This centralization later helped to keep Brazil as a unified nation-state, avoiding fragmentation similar to that of the Spanish domains.

Most internal boundaries were kept unchanged from the end of the colonial period, generally following natural features such as rivers and mountain ridges.

Some changes were made to suit domestic politics (transferring the Triângulo Mineiro from Goiás to Minas Gerais, transferring the south bank of the São Francisco River from Pernambuco to Minas Gerais and later to Bahia, separating the capital city of Rio de Janeiro as a Neutral Municipality outside any province, splitting Amazonas from Pará, and splitting Paraná from São Paulo), as well as international border adjustments resulting from diplomatic settlement of territorial disputes.

The Cisplatine Province was annexed into Brazil in 1821, declared independence as Uruguay in 1825, and was recognized by the Treaty of Montevideo in 1828.

In 1942–1943, with the entrance of Brazil into World War II, the Vargas regime detached six strategic territories from the borders of the country to administer them directly: the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha (from Pernambuco), Amapá (from Pará), Rio Branco (from Amazonas), Guaporé (from Mato Grosso and Amazonas), Ponta Porã (from Mato Grosso) and Iguaçu (from Paraná and Santa Catarina).