Demography of Brazil

 

Brazil's population is very diverse, comprising many races and ethnic groups. In general, Brazilians trace their origins from four sources of migration: Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians.

Brazil has conducted a periodical population census since 1872. Since 1940, this census has been carried out decennially. Scanned versions of the forms for each census distributed in Brazil since 1960 are available on-line from IPUMS International.^[1]

Largest cities

Main article: List of largest cities in Brazil

Rank	City	State	Pop.	Rank	City	State	Pop.
1	São Paulo	SP	11,016,703	11	Belém	PA	1,428,368
2	Rio de Janeiro	RJ	6,136,652	12	Guarulhos	SP	1,283,253
3	Salvador	BA	2,714,119	13	Goiânia	GO	1,220,412
4	Fortaleza	CE	2,416,920	14	Campinas	SP	1,059,420	São Paulo
5	Belo Horizonte	MG	2,399,920	15	São Luís	MA	922,458
6	Brasília	DF	2,383,784	16	São Gonçalo	RJ	973,372
7	Curitiba	PR	1,788,559	17	Maceió	AL	922,458
8	Manaus	AM	1,644,690	18	D. de Caxias	RJ	855,010
9	Recife	PE	1,515,052	19	Nova Iguaçu	RJ	844,583
10	Porto Alegre	RS	1,440,939	20	Teresina	PI	813,992	Rio de Janeiro
Source:[33] Guarulhos is part of the Greater São Paulo. Duque de Caxias, Nova Iguaçu and São Gonçalo are part of the Greater Rio de Janeiro.

Cities in Brazil, except for the state of São Paulo, are usually not arranged in a single network, but rather on various export paths to seaside ports. Some geographers have called this an "archipelago" of cities,^[2] and the most important cities are on the coast or close to it. State capitals are also each the largest city in its state, except for Palmas, the new capital of the recently created state of Tocantins, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina. There are also non-capital metropolitan areas in São Paulo state (Campinas, Santos and Paraíba Valley), Minas Gerais (Steel Valley), Rio Grande do Sul (Sinos Valley), and Santa Catarina (Itajaí Valley).

São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are far larger than any other Brazilian city. São Paulo's influence in most economic aspects can be noted in a national (and even international) scale; other Brazilian metropolises are second tier, even though Rio de Janeiro (partially due to its former status as the national capital) still host various large corporations' headquarters, besides being Brazil's cultural center with respect to soap operas and film production.

Migrations

Immigration

Main article: Immigration to Brazil

Immigration to Brazil, by Ethnic groups, periods from 1500 to 1933 Source: Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE)
	Period
Ethnic group	1500-1700	1701-1760	1761-1829	1830-1855	1856-1883	1884-1893	1894-1903	1904-1913	1914-1923	1924-1933
Africans	510,000	958,000	1,720,000	618,000	-	-	-	-	-	-
Portuguese	100,000	600,000	26,000	16,737	116,000	170,621	155,542	384,672	201,252	233,650
Italians	-	-	-	-	100,000	510,533	537,784	196,521	86,320	70,177
Spaniards	-	-	-	-	-	113,116	102,142	224,672	94,779	52,405
Germans	-	-	5,003	2,008	30,000	22,778	6,698	33,859	29,339	61,723
Japanese	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	11,868	20,398	110,191
Syrians and Lebanese	-	-	-	-	-	96	7,124	45,803	20,400	20,400
Others	-	-	-	-	-	66,524	42,820	109,222	51,493	164,586

Immigration has been a very important demographic factor in the formation, structure and history of the population in Brazil, influencing culture, economy, education, racial issues, etc. Brazil has received the third largest number of immigrants in the Western Hemisphere, after the United States and Argentina.

Brazil's structure, legislation and settlement policies for arriving immigrants were much less organized than in Canada and the United States at the time. Nevertheless, an Immigrant's Hostel (Hospedaria dos Imigrantes) was built in 1886 in São Paulo, and quick admittance and recording routines for the throngs of immigrants arriving by ship at the seaports of Vitória, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Paranaguá, Florianópolis and Porto Alegre were established. The São Paulo State alone processed more thar 2.5 million immigrants in its almost 100 years of continuous operation. People of more than 70 different nationalities were recorded.

Following the trend of several other countries in the Americas, which encouraged immigration from many countries, Brazil quickly became a melting pot of races and nationalities, probably the second largest in the world after the USA, but being peculiar in the sense of having the highest degree of intermarriage in the world. Immigrants found a strong social and cultural tolerance toward inter-racial marriage, including large numbers of Mulattoes (white and black), Caboclos (Indian and White) and mixed European, African and Indian people, though it was not accompanied by an entire lack of racism. Correspondingly, the same mentality reflected in low psychological and social barriers regarding intermarriage between Europeans, Middle Easterners and Asians of several origins, as well as between people of different religions.

History of immigration

It is believed that the Americas were settled by three migratory waves from Northern Asia. The Native Brazilians are thought to descend from the first wave of migrants, who arrived in the region around 9000 BC. The main Native Brazilian groups are the Tupi-Guarani, the Jê, the Arawaks and the Caraibas (Caribs). The Tupi-Guarani nation, originally from the Paraná river basin and also the main of Native-Paraguayan nations, had spread all along the Brazilian coastline from South to North and got to be known by the Portuguese as "Os Índios da Língua Geral" ("The Indians of the General Language"); the Jê nation occupied most of the interior of the country from Maranhão to Santa Catarina. The Arawaks and the Caribs, the last ones to get in contact with the Portuguese, lived in the North and Northwest of Brazil.

The European immigration to Brazil started in the sixteenth century, with the vast majority of them coming from Portugal. In the first two centuries of colonization, 100,000 Portuguese arrived in Brazil (around 500 colonists per year). In the eighteenth century, 600,000 Portuguese arrived (6,000 per year).^[3] The first region to be settled by the Portuguese was Northeastern Brazil, followed by the Southeast region. The original Amerindian population of Brazil (between two and five million) has in large part been exterminated or assimilated into the Portuguese population.^[4] The Mamelucos (or Caboclos, a mixed race between Whites and Amerindians) have always been present in many parts of Brazil.

Another important ethnic group, Africans, first arrived as slaves. Many came from Guinea, or from West African countries - by the end of the eighteenth century many had been taken from Congo, Angola and Mozambique (or, in Bahia, from Nigeria). By the time of the end of the slave trade in 1850, around three to five million slaves had been brought to Brazil–37% of all slave traffic between Africa and the Americas. Nowadays, there are still immigration waves coming from the African continent, from countries such as Cape Verde and Sierra Leone.

The largest influx of European immigrants to Brazil occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to the Memorial do Imigrante statistics data, Brazil attracted nearly 5 million immigrants between 1870 and 1953.^[5][6] These immigrants were divided in two groups: a part of them was sent to Southern Brazil to work as small farmers. However, the biggest part of the immigrants was sent to Southeast Brazil to work in the coffee plantations. The immigrants sent to Southern Brazil were mainly Germans (starting in 1824, mainly from Rhineland-Palatinate, Pomerania, Hamburg, Westphalia, etc) and Italians (starting in 1875, mainly from the Veneto and Lombardia). In the South, the immigrants established rural communities that, still today, have a strong cultural connection with their ancestral homelands. In south east Brazil, most of the immigrants were Italians (mainly from the Veneto, Campania, Calabria and Lombardia), Portuguese (mainly from Beira Alta, Minho and Alto Trás-os-Montes), Spaniards (mainly from Galicia and Andalusia).

Notably, the first half of the twentieth century saw a large inflow of Japanese (mainly from Honshū, Hokkaidō and Okinawa) and Arab (from Lebanon and Syria) immigrants. These Arab immigrants were - and still are - wrongly called "Turks" by many Brazilians because their original countries were still under Turkish rule back in the day Arab immigration to Brazil began. The number of actual Turks who immigrated to Brazil was in fact very small.

Emigration

In the second half of the 1980s, Brazilians from various socioeconomic levels started to emigrate to other countries in search of economic opportunities. High inflation and low economic growth in the 1980s, signs of what became known as the "lost decade" in Latin America, followed by the government's unsuccessful liberal economic policies in the 1990s, meant that even educated Brazilians could make more money doing low-skilled work abroad.

In the 1990s, near 1.9 million Brazilians were living outside the country, mainly in the United States, Paraguay and Japan,^[7] but also in Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Israel. However, there were no specific policies implemented by the government to encourage or discourage this emigration process.^[8]

The 2000 Brazilian Census provides some information about the high number of migrants returning to Brazil. Of those who reported residing in another country less than 10 years before the 2000 census, 66.9 percent were Brazilians. If only the returning migrants (former Brazilian immigrants) are considered, 26.8 percent of Brazilians came from Paraguay, 17 percent came from Japan, and 15.8 percent came from the United States.^[8]

Ethnic groups

Main article: Ethnic Groups in Brazil

In part, the population descends from early European settlers — chiefly Portuguese; African (Yoruba, Ewe, Bantu, and others), and assimilated indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi and Guarani, but also of many other ethnic groups). Trans-ethnic marriages and concubinates have been common and well accepted ever since the first Portuguese settlers arrived. Starting in the late 19th century Brazil received substantial immigration from several other countries, mainly what are now the countries of Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland, Lebanon and Syria (mostly Christians), Ukraine, Japan, the People's Republic of China and Korea. Jewish people, both from Ashkenazi and Sephardi origin, form considerably large communities, especially in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

The descendants of more recent European immigrants, particularly the Germans, Italians and Poles, are mainly concentrated in the southern part of the country, in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, and the most populate, São Paulo; these states have a large majority of people of European descent. In the rest of the country, most of the white population is of older Portuguese settler stock. In the mid-southern states of Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul and in the Federal District of Brasilia, the number of whites is somewhat equal to the number of Afro-Brazilian and mixed race Brazilians.

In the Northeast, which received large masses of African slaves to work in sugarcane, tobacco and cotton plantations, people of African and mixed-race descent are dominant. The city of Salvador da Bahia, for exemplo, is considered one of the largest black cities of the world. In the Northwest (covering largely the Brazilian Amazon), a great part of the population has distinguisheable ethnic characteristics that emphasize their Amerindian roots. Other ethnic groups have merged with the Indigenous tribes there. This region is not densely populated, and "caboclos", people of mixed native and European descent, are a small part of the entire Brazilian population.

The Japanese are the largest Asian group in Brazil. In fact, Brazil has the largest Japanese population outside Japan, with 1.5 million Japanese-Brazilians, most of them living in São Paulo. Some Chinese and Koreans also settled Brazil. Most Chinese came from mainland China, but others came from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and also from Portuguese-speaking Macau—these Chinese from Macau could speak and understand Portuguese, and it was not hard for them to adjust to Brazilian life. Those immigrant populations and their descendants still retain some of their original ethnic identity, however they are not closed communities and are rapidly integrating into mainstream Brazilian society: for instance, very few of the third generation can understand their grandparents' languages.

There are also a large number of Brazilians of Arab descent (estimated at 10 million people) , most of Christian Lebanese or Syrian descent.^[9]

Aboriginal Brazilians

Main article: Indigenous peoples in Brazil

The Amerindians make up 0.4% of Brazil's population, or about 700,000 people. Indigenous peoples are found in the entire territory of Brazil, although the majority of them live in indian reservations in the North and Centre-Western part of the country. Aboriginal Brazilians are all people who descend from the earliest settlers of the country.

Over 60 million Brazilians possess at least one Amerindian ancestor, according to a recent mitochondrial DNA study.^[10] However, only 0.4% of the population consider themselves to be Indians. Reasons for this include race-mixing and the loss of their identity throughout the centuries.

When the first Portuguese arrived in Brazil, in 1500, there were about 5 million Indians living in the country. In the mid-19th century they were only 100,000 and in the late 20th century close to 300,000.

Blacks

Main article: Afro-Brazilian

According to the 2006 census, Blacks are 6.9% or 12.908 million people of Brazil's population. However, the IBGE counts the Pardo group as Afro-Brazilian, which gives Brazil the number of 92.069 million people of some Black African ancestry, the largest population of Black origin outside of Africa.^[11]

Slavery in Brazil lasted for 350 years and brought nearly four million Africans to the country. Millions of Brazilians descend from Black slaves, although only twelve million are reported black by the IBGE. The number, however, is growing. According to IBGE, this trend is mainly because of the revaluation of the identity of historically discriminated ethnic groups.^[11]

Asian Brazilians

Main article: Asian Brazilian

According to the 2006 census, Brazilians of East Asian descent make up 0.5% or 919 thousand people of Brazil's population. Some estimates say that there are at least 1.5 million people of Japanese descent in Brazil, who are mostly concentrated in two states: São Paulo and Paraná, but smaller communities are found in the entire territory of the country. Brazil has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan.^[11]

There are also smaller communities of Korean and Chinese origin.

Multiracial Brazilians

Main article: Mixed-race Brazilian

Brazil does not have a category for multiracial people, but a Pardo (brown) one, which may include mixed race, mulattos, and assimilated indigenous people ("caboclos").^[12][13]

The Pardos make up 42.6% or 79.782 million people of Brazil's population. Mixed-race Brazilians live in the entire territory of Brazil. Although, according to DNA resources, most Brazilians possess a mixed-race ancestry, less than 40% of the country's population classified themselves as being part of this group.^[14]

White Brazilians

Main article: White Brazilian

According to the 2006 census, White Brazilians make up 49.7% of Brazil's population, or 93.096 million people. ^[11] Whites are found in the entire territory of Brazil, although the main concentrations are found in the South and Southeastern parts of the country. White Brazilians are all people who are total or mostly descendend from White immigrants.

Up to 1800, close to one million Europeans had left for Brazil, most of them colonial settlers from Portugal. The boom of the immigration occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, when nearly five million Europeans immigrated to Brazil, most of them Italians, Portuguese, Germans and Spaniards.

Although White Brazilians make up the majority of the population, a large number of them have some Amerindian and/or African ancestry (similar admixture are found in White Americans ^[15] and White Argentines). ^[16]

Nowadays, White Brazilians come from a very diverse background, which includes:

• The Arab Brazilian population is estimated at about 10 million people, mostly Syrians and Lebanese people.

• The Dutch were some of the first Europeans to settle in Brazil. At a certain time they controlled as much as half of present-day Brazil.

• The first Germans arrived in Brazil in 1824. Most of them established themselves in rural communities across Southern Brazil, such as São Leopoldo, Novo Hamburgo, Blumenau and Pomerode. In states of the south, such as Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, they may represent as much as 35% of the population. ^[17]

• Italians started arriving in Brazil in 1875. First they settled in rural communities across Southern Brazil. In the early 20th century, they mostly settled in the coffee plantations in the Southeast. 25 million Brazilians are of Italian origin, the largest numbers outside of Italy itself, most of them descended from Northern Italians.

• Poles came in significant numbers to Brazil after 1870. Most of them settled in the State of Paraná, working as small farmers.

• Most Brazilians are full or partly of Portuguese ancestry. They started arriving in 1500, the immigration grew in the 18th century and the boom occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

• Spaniards came in large numbers to Brazil, starting in the late 19th century. Most of them were attracted to work in the coffee plantations in the State of São Paulo. Today there is an estimated 15 million Brazilians of direct Spanish descent. ^[18]

See also: Arab Brazilian, Dutch Brazil, German-Brazilian, Italian Brazilian, Polish Brazilian, Portuguese Brazilian, and Spanish Brazilian

Education and health

Main articles: Education in Brazil and Health care in Brazil

The Federal Constitution of 1988 and the 1996 General Law of Education in Brazil (LDB) attributed to the Federal Government, states, Federal District and municipalities the responsibility of managing the Brazilian educational system, considering three educational public systems as a basis for collaboration between these federal systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as mechanisms and sources for financial resources. The new Constitution reserves 25% of state and municipal taxes and 18% of federal taxes for education.^[19]

As set out by the Brazilian Constitution, the main responsibility for basic education is attributed to the states and municipalities. Hence, a historical feature of Brazilian basic education is its extremely decentralized nature, which gives great organizational autonomy to sub-national governments (27 states and 5,546 municipalities) in organizing their educational systems. Early childhood education, from 0-6 years, is under exclusive responsibility of the municipalities. Responsibility for compulsory primary education from 1st to 9th grades is shared between states and municipalities. Kindergarten and pre-school education are the responsibility of local levels of government, whereas secondary schools are under the responsibility of the states. Maintenance of the system, including salaries, the definition of teacher career structures and supervision of early childhood, primary, and secondary levels (which make up basic education) is decentralized, and these levels are responsible for defining their respective curriculum content.

Higher education starts with undergraduate or sequential courses, which may offer different specialization choices such as academic or vocational paths. Depending on the choice, students may improve their educational background with Stricto Sensu or Lato Sensu postgraduate courses. Higher education has three main purposes: teaching, research and extension, each with their own specific contribution to make to a particular course. Diplomas and certificates are proof of having passed through higher education.

In 2003, the literacy rate was at 88 percent of the population, and the youth literacy rate (ages 15–19) was 93.2 percent.^[20] However, Brazilian annalists tend to approach these favorable numbers with suspicion, considering the generally poor levels of performance displayed by students, especially in the public school network.

According to Brazilian Government, the most serious health problems are:^[21]

• Childhood mortality: about 2.51% of childhood mortality, reaching 3.77% in the northeast region.
• Motherhood mortality: about 73.1 deaths per 100,000 born children in 2002.
• Mortality by non-transmissible illness: 151.7 deaths per 100,000 habitants caused by heart and circulatory diseases, along with 72.7 deaths per 100,000 habitants caused by cancer.
• Mortality caused by external causes (transportation, violence and suicide): 71.7 deaths per 100,000 habitants (14.9% of all deaths in the country), reaching 82.3 deaths in the southeast region.

Religion

Main article: Religion in Brazil

According to the IBGE census: 74% are Roman Catholics (about 130 million); 15.4% are Protestants (about 28 million); 7.4% consider themselves agnostics, atheists or without a religion (about 12 million); 1.3% are followers of Spiritism (about 2.2 million); 0.3% are followers of African traditional religions such as Candomblé and Umbanda; 1.7% are members of other religions. Some of these are Jehovah's Witnesses (1,100,000), Latter-day Saints (600,000),^[22] Buddhism (215,000), Judaism (150,000), and Islam (27,000) and some practice a mixture of different religions, such as Catholicism, Candomblé, and indigenous American religions.^[23]

Brazil has the largest Roman Catholic population in the world.

Followers of Protestantism are rising in number. Until 1970, the majority of Brazilian Protestants were the ones of "traditional churches", mostly Lutherans, Presbyterians and Baptists. Since then, numbers of Pentecostal and Neopentecostal adherents have increased significantly.

Islam in Brazil was first practiced by African slaves.^[24] Today, the Muslim population in Brazil is made up mostly of Arab immigrants. A recent trend has been the increase in conversions to Islam among non-Arab citizens.^[25]

The largest population of Buddhists in Latin America lives in Brazil. This is mostly because Brazil has the largest Japanese population outside Japan.^[26]

Brazil appears as a devout country to outsiders yet in an IBOPE poll, about 8% of Brazilians declared themselves to be non-religious (with 2% declaring themselves atheists) and 58% of Catholics considered themselves "not very practicing" or "not at all practicing".^[27]

According to IBGE 2000 Census,^[28] these are the biggest religious denominations in Brazil (only listed those with more than a half million members):

Rank	Religion	Members	Other information
1	Roman Catholic Church	125 million	Its Charismatic Renewal branch is fast growing; the Progressive Branch (Liberation Theology) and the Conservative branch are in decline. Only 30% of the Roman Catholic Church's membership attends the church regularly. The Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney in Campos dos Goytacazes is one of the most leading traditionalist Catholic groups in the world. See Roman Catholicism in Brazil.
2	Assemblies of God (Assembléias de Deus)	8,4 million	General Convention of the Assemblies of God: 3,6 Million. Affiliated with the American Assemblies of God, Springfield, MO. National Convention of the Assemblies of God: 2,5 Million. A.k.a. Madureira Ministry of the Assemblies of God. Other independent Assemblies of God: 1,9 Million, such as Bethesda Assemblies of God.
3	Baptist	3,1 million	Brazilian Baptist Convention: 1,2 Million adherents. Affiliated to US Southern Baptists:* National Baptist Convention: 1 Million. Charismatics Baptists. Independent Baptist Convention: 400,000. Scandinavian Baptists. Other Baptists: 400,000.
4	Christian Congregation of Brazil	2,6 million	Italian-Brazilian Pentecostals
5	Spiritist	2,2 million	These includes Kardec Spiritualist; Afro-Brazilian Sincretists, New Age, etc, but with a much larger influence than their numbers.
6	Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus)	2,0 million	Neo-Pentecostal Movement.
7	Foursquare Gospel Church	1,3 million	Classic Pentocostals in US, but second-wave pentecostals in Brazil.
8	Adventists	1,2 million	Seventh-day Adventist Church: 900,000. Promise Adventist Church: 150,000. Indigenous Pentecostal Adventists. Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement: 50,000. Other Adventists: 100,000.
9	Lutherans	1 million	Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confission. Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil. Other Lutherans.
10	Calvinists	1 million	Presbyterian Church of Brazil: 450,000. Independent Presbyterian Church: 300,00. Congregationalists: 100,000. Other Calvinists:150,000.
11	Jehovah's Witnesses	638,000
12	God is Love Pentecostal Church	700,000	Divine Healing movement.
13	Independent Catholics	600,000	Groups like Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church and many other small ones.
14	Anglicans	100,000	Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil.
15	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints	800,000	("LDS Church"; see also Mormon).
16	Buddhism	214,873
17	Judaism	86,825
18	Islam	27,239
19	Hinduism	2,905
-	Atheists and Agnostics	12 million	The non-religious people.

Languages

Main articles: Languages of Brazil and Brazilian Portuguese

Portuguese is the only official language of Brazil.^[29] It is spoken by nearly the entire population and is virtually the only language used in schools, newspapers, radio, TV and for all business and administrative purposes. Moreover, Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity.

Portuguese as spoken in Brazil has developed independently of the European mother tongue, and it has undergone fewer phonetic changes than the language spoken in Portugal,^[30] thus it is often said that the "language of Camões", an important Portuguese fifteenth century author, sounded closer to modern Brazilian Portuguese than to the language spoken in Portugal today, and that his work is poetically more perfect when read the Brazilian way.

Many Amerindian languages are spoken daily in indigenous communities, primarily in Northern Brazil. Although many of these communities have significant contact with Portuguese,^[31] today there are incentives stimulating preservation and the teaching of native languages. According to SIL International, 133 native American languages are currently endangered. Some of the largest indigenous language groups include Arawak, Carib, Macro-Gê and Tupi.^[32] In 2006, the City of São Gabriel da Cachoeira in the region of Cabeça do Cachorro (Northwestern region of the State of Amazonas), has adopted some indigenous languages as some of its other official languages along with Portuguese.

Other languages are spoken by descendants of immigrants, who are usually bilingual, in small rural communities in Southern Brazil. The most important are the Brazilian German dialects, such as Riograndenser Hunsrückisch and the Pomeranian language, and also the Talian, based on the Italian Venetian language. In the city of São Paulo, Japanese, Chinese and Korean can be heard in the immigrant neighborhoods, such as Liberdade.

English is also part of the official high school curriculum in most of the Brazilian states, but very few Brazilians are fluent. Spanish is understood to varying degrees by many Brazilians, especially on the borders with Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. The same applies to French, English and Dutch which is spoken and understood in the Brazilian cities and areas bordering French Guiana, Guyana and Surinam

Demographic Breakdown

Population

188,078,227

Note: Brazil took a count in August 2000, which reported a population of 169,799,170; that figure was about 3.3% lower than projections by the US Census Bureau, and is close to the implied underenumeration of 4.6% for the 1991 census; estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2006 est.). However, there has also been a dramatic decrease in fertility rates since the 1970s.

Age structure

0-14 years: 25.8% (male 24,687,656/female 23,742,998)

15-64 years: 68.1% (male 63,548,331/female 64,617,539)

65 years and over: 6.1% (male 4,712,675/female 6,769,028) (2006 est.)

Median age

Median age

Population growth rate

1.04% (2006 est.)

Birth rate

16.56 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Death rate

6.17 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)

Net migration rate

-0.03 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)

Sex ratio

At birth: 1.05 male(s)/female

Under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female

15-64 years: 0.983 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 0.697 male(s)/female

Total population: 0.976 male(s)/female (2007 est.)

Infant mortality rate

Total: 28.6 deaths/1,000 live births

Male: 32.3 deaths/1,000 live births

Female: 24.7 deaths/1,000 live births (2006 est.)

Note: states from the south have this rate as low as 12.4 deaths/1,000 live births, which shows an incredible difference concerning quality of life in the various regions of the country.

Life expectancy at birth

Note: states from the south have this rate as low as 12.4 deaths/1,000 live births, which shows an incredible difference concerning quality of life in the various regions of the country.

Total fertility rate

1.91 children born/woman (2006 est.)

Nationality

Noun: Brazilian(s)

Adjective: Brazilian

Ethnic groups

The only relatively isolated minority ethnic groups in Brazil are various non-assimilated indigenous tribes, comprising less than 1% of the population, who live in officially delimited reservations and either avoid contact with civilized people, or constitute separate social and political communities.

The rest of the population can be considered a single "Brazilian" ethnic group, with highly varied racial types and backgrounds, but without clear ethnic sub-divisions. By physical type, a recent survey gives 53% "white", 38% "mixed", 6% "black", 1% "other".

The ethnic origins of the Brazilians can be traced to: the Bantu; the Ewe; the Germans; the Guarani; the Italians; the Japanese; the Lebanese; the Poles; the Portuguese; the Spaniards; the Syrians; the Tupi; the Ukrainians; and the Yoruba.

Religions

Roman Catholic (nominal) 73.6%, Protestant 15.4%, Spiritualist 1.3%, Bantu/voodoo 0.3%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.2%, none 7.4% (2000 census)

Languages

Portuguese (official)

Literacy

Male: 90.4%

Female: 89.8% (2003 est.)

See also

• Brazil
• Race in Brazil

References