Brazilian Navy

The Brazilian Navy (Portuguese: Marinha do Brasil) is the naval service branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces, responsible for conducting naval operations. The Brazilian Navy is the largest navy in South America and in Latin America, and the second largest navy in the Americas, after the United States Navy.

The navy was involved in Brazil's war of independence from Portugal. Most of Portugal's naval forces and bases in South America were transferred to the newly independent country. In the initial decades following independence, the country maintained a large naval force and the navy was later involved in the Cisplatine War, the River Plate conflicts, the Paraguayan War as well as other sporadic rebellions that marked Brazilian history.

By the 1880s the Brazilian Imperial Navy was the most powerful in South America. After the 1893 naval rebellion, there was a hiatus in the development of the navy until 1905, when Brazil acquired two of the most powerful and advanced dreadnoughts of the day which sparked a dreadnought race with Brazil's South American neighbours. The Brazilian Navy participated in both World War I and World War II, engaging in anti-submarine patrols in the Atlantic.

The modern Brazilian Navy includes British-built guided missile frigates (FFG), locally built corvettes (FFL), coastal diesel-electric submarines (SSK) and many other river and coastal patrol craft.