The term maracatu denotes any of several performance genres found in Pernambuco, Northeastern Brazil. Main types of maracatu include maracatu nação (nation-style maracatu) and maracatu rural (rural-style maracatu).

Maracatu nação (also known as maracatu de baque virado: "maracatu of the turned-around beat"), the most well-known of the maracatu genres, is an Afro-Brazilian performance genre practiced in the state of Pernambuco, mainly in the cities of Recife and Olinda. The term, often shortened simply to nação ("nation", pl. nações), refers not only to the performance but to the performing groups themselves.

Maracatu nação’s origins lie in the investiture ceremonies of the Reis do Congo (Kings of Congo), who were enslaved people who were granted leadership roles within the enslaved community by the Portuguese administration. When slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, the institution of the Kings of Congo ceased to exist. Nonetheless, nações continued to choose symbolic leaders and evoke coronation ceremonies for those leaders. Although a maracatu performance is secular, traditional nações are grouped around Candomblé or Jurema (Afro-Brazilian religions) terreiros (bases), and the principles of Candomblé infuse their activities.

Traditional nações perform by parading with a drumming group of 80–100, a singer and chorus, and a coterie of dancers and stock characters including a king and a queen. Dancers and stock characters dress and behave to imitate the Portuguese royal court of the Baroque period.

The performance also enacts pre-colonial African traditions, like parading the calunga, a doll representing tribal deities that is kept throughout the year in a special place in the nação's headquarters. The calungas, usually female, are traditionally made of either wax and wood or of cloth. They may have clothing made for them in a similar Baroque style to the costumes worn by the other members of the royal court. The calunga is sacred, and carrying this spiritual figurehead of the group is a great responsibility for the female Dama de Paço (Lady-in-Waiting) of the cortège.

The musical ensemble consists of alfaia (a large wooden rope-tuned drum), gonguê (a metal cowbell), tarol (a shallow snare drum), caixa-de-guerra (or "war-snare"), abê (a gourd shaker enveloped in a net of beads), and mineiro (a metal cylindrical shaker filled with metal shot or small dried seeds). The song form is call and response between a solo singer and (usually) a female chorus.

Today there are around 20 nações operating in the cities of Recife and Olinda. Although several have an unbroken line of activity going back to the 19th century, most have been set up in recent decades. Well-known nações include Estrela Brilhante, Leão Coroado, and Porto Rico. Each year they perform during the Carnival period in Recife and Olinda. Maracatu Nação Pernambuco, while not a traditional maracatu, was primarily responsible for introducing the genre to overseas audiences in the 1990s.

The genre has inspired the establishment of performing groups in a number of cities outside Brazil, including Lisbon, Toronto, Quebec City, New York City, Austin, Washington, D.C., Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Lyon, Stockholm, London, Edinburgh, Brighton, Madison, Oakland, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Manchester, Bristol, Oxford, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Madrid.