About
A definitions spoke, not a newsroom
whatisbrics.org explains what the BRICS grouping is, who has joined it, and which institutions the members actually built. It is the definitions spoke in a small BRICS cluster: bricspolicy.org is for policy and summit politics; bricsnations.org is for member-state files. This site stays on vocabulary and structure.
Where it sits in the wider desk
The live conflict map at armedconflicts.org is the hub of the Situation Monitor citation cluster. That hub is frozen: this repo will not restyle it, rewrite it, or treat it as a canvas. When a definition touches an active war, an energy chokepoint, or political violence, we add an inbound link to the hub or to a named briefing there.
Adjacent spokes we cite when the subject calls for them: US Foreign Policy, Foreign Diplomacy, US Market Updates, Global Market Updates, OilRoutes, and Political Violence Map.
Methodology
- Prefer founding documents, summit declarations, and the New Development Bank’s own charter language over commentary.
- Separate the 2001 Goldman Sachs investment acronym from the diplomatic forum that held its first summit in 2009.
- Label uncertainty in plain type: invitations that were not completed, partner-country lists that move, and any figure we cannot tie to a public official source.
- Never invent GDP shares, trade-settlement percentages, NDB disbursement totals, or “dedollarization” ratios.
What this site is not
It is not a government website, a BRICS organ, or a live wire. It does not take a brief for or against the grouping. Advocacy copy belongs elsewhere. If you need markets, diplomacy, or tanker positions, use the desks linked above.
Machine-readable companions for agents live at /llm-info, /llms.txt, /ai.txt, and /agents.txt.