Demographics of Brazil - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

's population is very diverse, comprising many races and ethnic group

Ethnic group

An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...

s. In general, Brazilians trace their origins from four sources: Amerindians

Indigenous peoples in Brazil

The Indigenous peoples in Brazil comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country prior to the European invasion around 1500...

, European

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

s, Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

ns and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

ns.

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

IPUMS

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series is the world's largest individual-level population database. IPUMS consists of microdata samples from United States and international census records...

International.

Historically

History of Brazil

The history of Brazil begins with the arrival of the first indigenous peoples, thousands of years ago by crossing the Bering land bridge into Alaska and then moving south....

, Brazil has experienced large degrees of ethnic and racial miscegenation

Miscegenation

Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....

, assimilation of cultures

Cultural assimilation

Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...

and syncretism

Syncretism

Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...

Largest cities

Cities in Brazil, except for the state of São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

, are usually not arranged in a single network, but rather on various export paths to seaside port

Port

A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....

s. 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 Vitória, Brazil, the capital of Espírito Santo

Espírito Santo

Espírito Santo is one of the states of southeastern Brazil, often referred to by the abbreviation "ES". Its capital is Vitória and the largest city is Vila Velha. The name of the state means literally "holy spirit" after the Holy Ghost of Christianity...

, and Florianópolis

Florianópolis

-Climate:Florianópolis experiences a warm humid subtropical climate, falling just short of a true tropical climate. The seasons of the year are distinct, with a well-defined summer and winter, and characteristic weather for autumn and spring. Frost is infrequent, but occurs occasionally in the winter...

, the capital of Santa Catarina

Santa Catarina (state)

Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...

. There are also non-capital metropolitan areas in São Paulo state

São Paulo (state)

São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...

(Campinas

Campinas

Campinas is a city and municipality located in the coastal interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. is the administrative center of the meso-region of the same name, with 3,783,597 inhabitants as of the 2010 Census, consisting of 49 cities....

, Santos

Santos (São Paulo)

-Sister cities: Shimonoseki, Japan Nagasaki, Japan Funchal, Portugal Trieste, Italy Coimbra, Portugal Ansião, Portugal Arouca, Portugal Ushuaia, Argentina Havana, Cuba Taizhou. China Ningbo. China Constanţa, Romania Ulsan, South Korea Colón, Panama* Cadiz, Spain...

and Paraíba Valley

Paraíba Valley

The Paraíba Valley is located in the eastern part of the state of São Paulo along the rodovia Presidente Dutra , between Rio De Janeiro and São Paulo....

), Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...

(Steel Valley), Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...

(Sinos Valley

Porto Alegre

Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...

), and Santa Catarina (Itajaí Valley

Vale do Itajaí

Vale do Itajaí also known as Vale Europeu is a mesoregion located in the Northeastern part of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. It has about 1.3 million inhabitants and comprises four smaller regions: Blumenau, Itajaí, Ituporanga and Rio do Sul...

).

São Paulo

São Paulo

and Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

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

Cinema of Brazil

Brazilian cinema was introduced early in the 20th century but took some time to consolidate itself as a popular form of entertainment. The film industry of Brazil has gone through periods of ups and downs, a reflection of its dependency on State funding and incentives.- Early days :A couple of...

Immigration

Immigration to Brazil, by national origin, periods from 1830 to 1933 Source: Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE IBGE The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE , is the agency responsible for statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil... )
	Period
origin	1830–1855	1856–1883	1884–1893	1894–1903	1904–1913	1914–1923	1924–1933
Portuguese	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	52,400
Germans	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

Demography

Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...

factor in the formation, structure and history of the population in Brazil, influencing culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

, economy

Economic system

An economic system is the combination of the various agencies, entities that provide the economic structure that defines the social community. These agencies are joined by lines of trade and exchange along which goods, money etc. are continuously flowing. An example of such a system for a closed...

, education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, racial issues, etc. Brazil has received the third largest number of immigrants in the Western Hemisphere

Western Hemisphere

The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...

, after the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

.

Brazil's structure, legislation and settlement policies for arriving immigrants were much less organized than in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

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

Santos (São Paulo)

, Paranaguá

Paranaguá

Paranaguá is a city in the state of Paraná in Brazil. Founded in 1648, it is Paraná's oldest city.It is known for its excellent port facilities, being the sea port for Curitiba, the capital of Paraná....

, Florianópolis

Florianópolis

and Porto Alegre

Porto Alegre

were established. The São Paulo State alone processed more than 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

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

, which encouraged immigration from many countries, Brazil quickly became a melting pot

Melting pot

The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...

of races and nationalities, but being peculiar in the sense of having the highest degree of intermarriage in the world. Immigrants found a strong social and cultural tolerance

Toleration

Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...

toward inter-racial marriage, including large numbers of Mulatto

Mulatto

Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...

es (white and black), Caboclo

Caboclo

A caboclo or caboco is a person of a mixed Brazilian Indian and European ancestry. In Brazil, a caboclo is a specific type of mestiço as is the mulato, a person of a mixed Afro-Brazilian and European ancestry....

s (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 religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

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

JE is a hypothetical intermediate source text of the Torah postulated by the DH. It is a combination and redaction of the Jahwist and Elohist source texts. According to this hypothesis, J was composed c. 950 BC, E was composed c. 850 BC, and the two were combined into JE c. 750 BC. JE was...

, the Arawaks and the Caraibas (Caribs). The Tupi-Guarani nation, originally from the Paraná river

Paraná River

The Paraná River is a river in south Central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina for some . It is second in length only to the Amazon River among South American rivers. The name Paraná is an abbreviation of the phrase "para rehe onáva", which comes from the Tupi language...

basin and also the main of Native-Paraguay

Paraguay

Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...

an 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

Maranhão

Maranhão is a northeastern state of Brazil. To the north lies the Atlantic Ocean. Maranhão is neighbored by the states of Piauí, Tocantins and Pará. The people of Maranhão have a distinctive accent...

to Santa Catarina

Santa Catarina (state)

. The Arawaks and the Caribs, the last ones to get in contact with the Portuguese, lived in the North and Northwest of Brazil.

The Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an immigration to Brazil

Immigration to Brazil

Immigration to Brazil is the movement to Brazil of foreign persons to reside permanently. It should not be confused with the colonisation of the country by the Portuguese, or with the forcible bringing of people from Africa as slaves....

started in the 16th century, with the vast majority of them coming from Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

. In the first two centuries of colonization, 100,000 Portuguese arrived in Brazil (around 500 colonists per year). In the 18th century, 600,000 Portuguese arrived (6,000 per year). The first region to be settled by the Portuguese was Northeastern Brazil

Northeast Region, Brazil

The Northeast Region of Brazil is composed of the following states: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, and it represents 18.26% of the Brazilian territory....

, followed by the Southeast region

Southeast Region, Brazil

The Southeast Region of Brazil is composed by the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It is the richest region of the country, responsible for approximately 60% of the Brazilian GDP. São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais are three richest states of Brazil,...

. The original Amerindian population of Brazil (between two and five million) has in large part been exterminated or assimilated into the Portuguese population. The Mameluco

Mameluco

Mameluco the word is believed to be of Arabic origin. The word in Arabic is Mamluk or Mamluka مملوك or مملوكة...

s (or Caboclo

Caboclo

s, a mixed race between Whites and Amerindians) have always been present in many parts of Brazil.

Another important ethnic group, Africa

Africa

ns, first arrived as slaves

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

. Many came from Guinea

Guinea

Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

, or from West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

n countries - by the end of the eighteenth century many had been taken from the Kingdom of Kongo

Kingdom of Kongo

The Kingdom of Kongo was an African kingdom located in west central Africa in what are now northern Angola, Cabinda, the Republic of the Congo, and the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo...

and modern-day Angola

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

, Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

and Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

. 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 small immigration waves coming from the African continent.

The largest influx of European immigrants to Brazil occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to the Memorial do Imigrante statistics data, Brazil attracted nearly 5 million immigrants between 1870 and 1953. These immigrants were divided in two groups: a part of them was sent to Southern Brazil to work as small farm

Farm

A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...

ers. However, the biggest part of the immigrants was sent to Southeast Brazil

Southeast Region, Brazil

to work in the coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

plantation

Plantation

A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

s. The immigrants sent to Southern Brazil were mainly Germans

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

(starting in 1824, mainly from Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....

, Pomerania

Pomerania

Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...

, Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Westphalia

Westphalia

Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...

, etc.) and Italians (starting in 1875, mainly from the Veneto

Veneto

Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

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

Veneto

, Campania

Campania

Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...

, Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

and Lombardia), Portuguese (mainly from Beira Alta

Beira Alta

Beira Alta Province was a Portuguese province in the north of Portugal.Vast plateaus, river valleys, mountains, and castles abound in Beira Alta.Formerly it was part of the Beira Province.The two main cities were Guarda and Viseu...

, Minho

Minho (province)

Minho is an historical province of Portugal. It was established as an official province in 1936 and dissolved in 1976. It consisted of 23 municipalities, with its capital in the city of Braga. Today, the area would include the districts of Braga and Viana do Castelo. Minho has substantial Celtic...

and Alto Trás-os-Montes

Alto Trás-os-Montes

Alto Trás-os-Montes often regered as Nordeste Transmontano is one of the largest Portuguese NUTS-level 3 subregion integrated in the Norte Region...

), Spaniards (mainly from Galicia and Andalusia

Andalusia

Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...

).

Notably, the first half of the 20th century saw a large inflow of Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

(mainly from Honshū

Honshu

is the largest island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyushu across the Kanmon Strait...

, Hokkaidō

Hokkaido

, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...

and Okinawa) and Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

(from Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

and Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

) immigrants. These Arab immigrants were—and still are—wrongly called "Turks

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

" 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

Turkish people

who immigrated to Brazil was in fact very small.

IBGE's 1998 PME

In 1998, the IBGE, within its preparation for the 2000 Census, experimentally introduced a question about "origem" (ancestry) in its "Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego" (Monthly Employment Research), in order to test the viability of introducing that variable in the Census. This research interviewed about 90,000 people in six metropolitan regions (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, and Recife).

Here are its results for both the White population and the population in general::

Brazilian Population, by ancestry, 1998
Ancestry	% of Whites	% of all races
Brazilian	83.11%	86.09%
Italian	15.72%	10.41%
Portuguese	14.50%	10.46%
Spanish	6.42%	4.40%
German	5.51%	3.54%
Indigenous	4.80%	6.64%
Black	1.30%	5.09%
Arab	0.72%	0.48%
Japanese	0.62%	1.34%
African	0.58%	2.06%
Jewish	0.25%	0.20%
Others	4.05%	2.81%
Total	137.58%	133.52%

Notice that the total is higher than 100% because of multiple claims of ascendants from different nations in the answers.

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

La Década Perdida

"La Década Perdida", meaning "the lost decade", is a designation to the financial period of crisis in Latin America during the 1980s...

" in Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, 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, nearly 1.9 million Brazilians were living outside the country, mainly in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Paraguay

Paraguay

and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, but also in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Portugal

Portugal

, the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Canada

Canada

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

and Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. However, there were no specific policies implemented by the government to encourage or discourage this emigration process.

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.

Racial composition

Most of the population descends from early European

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

settlers—chiefly Portuguese

Portuguese people

The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....

, including Portuguese New Christians, descendants of Jews forced to convert to Christianity; African (Yoruba

Yoruba people

The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...

, Ewe, Akan

Akan people

The Akan people are an ethnic group found predominately in Ghana and The Ivory Coast. Akans are the majority in both of these countries and overall have a population of over 20 million people.The Akan speak Kwa languages-Origin and ethnogenesis:...

, Bantu, and others), and assimilated indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi and Guarani, but also of many other ethnic groups). Interracial breeding 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

Italy

, Germany

Germany

, Spain

Spain

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, Lebanon

Lebanon

and Syria

Syria

(mostly Christians), Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, Japan

Japan

, the People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

and Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

. Jewish people, mainly from Ashkenazi, but also from Sephardi origin, form small but sizeable communities, especially in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Porto Alegre.

The descendants of European immigrants, particularly the Germans

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

, Italians and Poles

Poles

thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...

, are mainly concentrated in the southern part of the country, in the states of Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul

, Santa Catarina

Santa Catarina (state)

, Paraná

Paraná (state)

Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...

, and the most populate, São Paulo

São Paulo (state)

; 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

Portuguese people

settler stock. In the mid-southern states of Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

, Espírito Santo

Espírito Santo

, Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais

, Goiás

Goiás

Goiás is a state of Brazil, located in the central part of the country. The name Goiás comes from the name of an indigenous community...

, Mato Grosso do Sul

Mato Grosso do Sul

Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil.Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. The economy of the state is largely based on agriculture and cattle-raising...

and in the Federal District, the number of whites is somewhat equal to the number of Afro-Brazilian

Afro-Brazilian

In Brazil, the term "preto" is one of the five categories used by the Brazilian Census, along with "branco" , "pardo" , "amarelo" and "indígena"...

and mixed race Brazilians.

In the Northeast, which received large masses of African slaves to work in sugarcane

Sugarcane

Sugarcane refers to any of six to 37 species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum . Native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six metres tall...

, tobacco

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

and cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

plantations, people of African and mixed-race descent predominate, mostly on the coast, whereas in the semi-arid country land (usually called sertão) there's a predominance of white and Amerindian-European mixed people. Most of the black or mulatto people in the sertão are descended from freed African slaves or mulattos who fled away from the coast and worked as cowboys for semi-feudal lords. The city of Salvador da Bahia

Salvador, Bahia

Salvador is the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first...

is considered one of the largest black cities of the world.
In the Northwest (covering largely the Brazilian Amazon

Amazon Basin

The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...

), a great part of the population has distinguishable ethnic characteristics that emphasize their Amerindian roots. Other ethnic groups have merged with the Indigenous tribes there. This region is not densely populated, and "caboclo

Caboclo

s", people of mixed native and European descent, are a small part of the entire Brazilian population.

The Japanese

Japanese people

are the largest Asian

Asian people

Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...

group in Brazil. In fact, Brazil has the largest population of Japanese ancestry outside Japan, with 1.5 million Japanese-Brazilians, most of them living in São Paulo

São Paulo

. Some Chinese

Overseas Chinese

Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....

and Koreans also settled Brazil. Most Chinese came from mainland China

Mainland China

Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...

, but others came from Taiwan

Republic of China

The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...

and Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, and also from Portuguese-speaking Macau

Macau

Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

—these Chinese from Macau

Macau

Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

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

Arab

descent (around 10%), most of Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

Lebanese

Lebanon

or Syria

Syria

n descent.

Aboriginal Brazilians

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 reservation

Indian reservation

An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...

s in the North and Centre-Western part of the country.

Over 60 million Brazilians possess at least one Amerindian ancestor, according to a recent mitochondrial DNA

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

study. However, only 0.4% of the population consider themselves to be Indians. Brazilians tend to consider "Indian" a cultural, not racial category.

When the first Portuguese

Portuguese people

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.

Black Brazilians

According to the 2006 census, Blacks number 12.9 million, or 7.4% of Brazil's population.

Slavery

Slavery

in Brazil lasted for 350 years, during which nearly four million Africans were brought to the country. Millions of Brazilians have some African ancestry, though not all of them are reported as black by the IBGE. The number, however, is growing. According to IBGE, this trend is mainly because of the reevaluation of the identity of historically discriminated ethnic groups.

Asian Brazilians

According to the 2006 census, people of East Asian descent number 1,919,000, or 1.1% of Brazil's population. Some estimates say that there are at least 2.5 million people of Japanese descent in Brazil, who are mostly concentrated in two states: São Paulo

São Paulo (state)

and Paraná

Paraná (state)

, but smaller communities are found in the entire territory of the country. Brazil has the largest population of Japanese descent outside of Japan

Japan

.

There are also smaller communities of Korean

Korean people

The Korean people are an ethnic group originating in the Korean peninsula and Manchuria. Koreans are one of the most ethnically and linguistically homogeneous groups in the world.-Names:...

and Chinese

Chinese people

The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....

origin.

Pardo Brazilians

The Pardos are a mixture of Europeans, Blacks and Amerindians. Brazil does not have a category for multiracial people, but a Pardo

Pardo

In Brazil, Pardo is a race/colour category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics in Brazilian censuses. It is a Portuguese word that encompasses various shades of brown, but is usually translated as "grayish-brown"...

(brown) one, which may include caboclo
Caboclo
A caboclo or caboco is a person of a mixed Brazilian Indian and European ancestry. In Brazil, a caboclo is a specific type of mestiço as is the mulato, a person of a mixed Afro-Brazilian and European ancestry....

s, mulatos, cafuzos (local ethnonyms for people of noticeable mixed White and Amerindian, Black and White, and Amerindian and Black descent i.e. mestizo

Mestizo

Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...

s, mulatto

Mulatto

es and zambo

Zambo

Zambo or Cafuzo are racial terms used in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires and occasionally today to identify individuals in the Americas who are of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry...

s, respectively), the multiracial result of their intermixing (despite most of White and Black Brazilians possessing some degree of race-mixing, since brownness in Brazil is a matter of phenotype) and assimilated, westernized
Westernization
Westernization or Westernisation , also occidentalization or occidentalisation , is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in such matters as industry, technology, law, politics, economics, lifestyle, diet, language, alphabet,...

indigenous people.

The Pardos make up 42.6% or 79.782 million people of Brazil's population. Multiracial Brazilians live in the entire territory of Brazil. Although, according to DNA resources, most Brazilians possess a mixed-race ancestry, less than 45% of the country's population classified themselves as being part of this group.

White Brazilians

According to the 2009 census, there were more than 107 million White Brazilians, comprising 51.7% of Brazil's population. White Brazilians are defined as people who are solely or mostly descended from European immigrants. Whites are found in the entire territory of Brazil, although they are most concentrated in the south and southeastern parts of the country.

Nearly one million Europeans arrived in Brazil by 1800; most of them colonists from Portugal

Portugal

. An immigration

Immigration

Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...

boom occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, when nearly six million Europeans immigrated to Brazil, most of them Italians, Portuguese

Portuguese people

, Germans

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

and Spaniards.

Many White Brazilians have some Amerindian and/or African ancestry (similarly found, but with widely differing percentages of admixture are, in White American

White American

White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...

s and White Argentines

Demographics of Argentina

This article is about the demographic features of Argentina, including population density, ethnicity, economic status and other aspects of the population....

).

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

The Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

were among the Europeans settling in Brazil during the 17th century. From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch controlled the northeast coast of Brazil, establishing their colonial capital in Recife. However, they did not settle Brazil in large numbers.

The first Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

arrived in Brazil in 1824. Most of them established themselves in rural communities across Southern Brazil, such as São Leopoldo
São Leopoldo
São Leopoldo is an important Brazilian industrial city located in the south state of Rio Grande do Sul. It occupies a total area of 103.9 km² at circa 30 km from the State Capital, Porto Alegre. Climate is sub-tropical, with temperatures varying from 2°C minimum at Winter to more than...

, Novo Hamburgo
Novo Hamburgo
Novo Hamburgo is a city in the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.Its population is 237,044 . The city covers an area of 217 square kilometers, and the average temperature is 19°C, a mild one for the region...

, Blumenau
Blumenau
Blumenau is a city in Vale do Itajaí, state of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil. It was founded on September 2, 1850 by Dr. Hermann Bruno Otto Blumenau along with 17 German immigrants. A few years later Fritz Müller migrated to Blumenau as well....

and Pomerode
Pomerode
Pomerode is a Brazilian city in the state of Santa Catarina, in Southern Brazil. It is located in the valley of the Itajaí-Açu river, not very far from the city of Blumenau, one of the largest cities in the state....

. In states of the south, such as Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, they may represent as much as 35% of the population.

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
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

plantations in the Southeast. 25 million Brazilians are of Italian origin, the largest number outside of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

itself, most of them descended from Northern Italians.

Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...

came in significant numbers to Brazil after 1870. Most of them settled in the State of Paraná
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...

, working as small farmers.

Most Brazilians are fully or partly of Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....

ancestry. Portuguese settlers began arriving in 1500. Immigration increased during the 18th century and reached its peak 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
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

. Today there is an estimated 15 million Brazilians of direct Spanish descent.

Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

came mostly in the late 19th century. Currently they number approximately 980,000, most of whom live in a compact settlement in south central Paraná (state)
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...

Composition of Brazil, genetic studies

Genetic studies have shown the Brazilian population as a whole to have European, African and Native Americans components.

Autosomal studies

A recent autosomal DNA

DNA

study (2011), with nearly 1000 samples from all over the country ("whites", "pardos" and "blacks"), found out a major European contribution, followed by a high African contribution and an important Native American component. "In all regions studied, the European ancestry was predominant, with proportions ranging from 60.6% in the Northeast to 77.7% in the South". The 2011 autosomal study samples came from blood donors (the lowest classes constitute the great majority of blood donors in Brazil ), and also public health institutions personnel and health students. The study showed that Brazilians from different regions are more homogenous than previously thought by some based on the census alone. "Brazilian homogeneity is, therefore, a lot greater between Brazilian regions than within Brazilians region".

Region	European	African	Native American
Northern Brazil	68,80%	10,50%	18,50%
Northeast of Brazil	60,10%	29,30%	8,90%
Southeast Brazil	74,20%	17,30%	7,30%
Southern Brazil	79,50%	10,30%	9,40%

According to an autosomal

Autosome

An autosome is a chromosome that is not a sex chromosome, or allosome; that is to say, there is an equal number of copies of the chromosome in males and females. For example, in humans, there are 22 pairs of autosomes. In addition to autosomes, there are sex chromosomes, to be specific: X and Y...

DNA study from 2010, "a new portrayal of each ethnicity contribution to the DNA of Brazilians, obtained with samples from the five regions of the country, has indicated that, on average, European ancestors are responsible for nearly 80% of the genetic heritage of the population. The variation between the regions is small, with the possible exception of the South, where the European contribution reaches nearly 90%. The results, published by the scientific magazine American Journal of Human Biology
American Journal of Human Biology
The American Journal of Human Biology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering human biology. It is the official publication of the Human Biology Association...

by a team of the Catholic University of Brasília

Universidade Católica de Brasília

The Universidade Católica de Brasília is a private and non-profit Catholic university, located in Brasília, the federal capital of Brazil. It is one of the largest and most prestigious Brazilian universities...

, show that, in Brazil, physical indicators such as skin colour, colour of the eyes and colour of the hair have little to do with the genetic ancestry of each person, which has been shown in previous studies (regardless of census classification). "Ancestry informative SNPs can be useful to estimate individual and population biogeographical ancestry. Brazilian population is characterized by a genetic background of three parental populations (European, African, and Brazilian Native Amerindians) with a wide degree and diverse patterns of admixture. In this work we analyzed the information content of 28 ancestry-informative SNPs into multiplexed panels using three parental population sources (African, Amerindian, and European) to infer the genetic admixture in an urban sample of the five Brazilian geopolitical regions. The SNPs assigned apart the parental populations from each other and thus can be applied for ancestry estimation in a three hybrid admixed population. Data was used to infer genetic ancestry in Brazilians with an admixture model. Pairwise estimates of F(st) among the five Brazilian geopolitical regions suggested little genetic differentiation only between the South and the remaining regions. Estimates of ancestry results are consistent with the heterogeneous genetic profile of Brazilian population, with a major contribution of European ancestry (0.771) followed by African (0.143) and Amerindian contributions (0.085). The described multiplexed SNP panels can be useful tool for bioanthropological studies but it can be mainly valuable to control for spurious results in genetic association studies in admixed populations". It is important to note that "the samples came from free of charge paternity test takers, thus as the researchers made it explicit: "the paternity tests were free of charge, the population samples involved people of variable socioeconomic strata, although likely to be leaning slightly
towards the ‘‘pardo’’ group".

Region	European	African	Native American
North Region North Region, Brazil The North Region of Brazil is the largest Region of Brazil, corresponding to 45.27% of the national territory. It is the least inhabited of the country, and contributes with a minor percentage in the national GDP and population...	71,10%	18,20%	10,70%
Northeast Region Northeast Region, Brazil The Northeast Region of Brazil is composed of the following states: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, and it represents 18.26% of the Brazilian territory....	77,40%	13,60%	8,90%
Central-West Region	65,90%	18,70%	11,80%
Southeast Region Southeast Region, Brazil The Southeast Region of Brazil is composed by the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It is the richest region of the country, responsible for approximately 60% of the Brazilian GDP. São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais are three richest states of Brazil,...	79,90%	14,10%	6,10%
South Region	87,70%	7,70%	5,20%

An autosomal DNA study from 2009 found a similar profile "all the Brazilian samples (regions) lie more closely to the European group than to the African populations or to the Mestizos from Mexico".

Region	European	African	Native American
North Region North Region, Brazil The North Region of Brazil is the largest Region of Brazil, corresponding to 45.27% of the national territory. It is the least inhabited of the country, and contributes with a minor percentage in the national GDP and population...	60,6%	21,3%	18,1%
Northeast Region Northeast Region, Brazil The Northeast Region of Brazil is composed of the following states: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, and it represents 18.26% of the Brazilian territory....	66,7%	23,3%	10,0%
Central-West Region	66,3%	21,7%	12,0%
Southeast Region Southeast Region, Brazil The Southeast Region of Brazil is composed by the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It is the richest region of the country, responsible for approximately 60% of the Brazilian GDP. São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais are three richest states of Brazil,...	60,7%	32,0%	7,3%
South Region	81,5%	9,3%	9,2%

According to another autosomal DNA study from 2008, by the University of Brasília (UnB), European ancestry dominates in the whole of Brazil (in all regions), accounting for 65,90% of heritage of the population, followed by the African contribution (24,80%) and the Native American (9,3%).

South

The South of Brazil is the region with the largest percentage of Whites. According to the 2005 census, people of European ancestry

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

account for 79.6% of the population. In colonial times, this region had a very small population.

The region what is now Southern Brazil was originally settled by Amerindian

Indigenous peoples in Brazil

The Indigenous peoples in Brazil comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country prior to the European invasion around 1500...

peoples, mostly Guarani and Kaingang

Kaingang

The Kaingang people are a Native American ethnic group spread out over the four southern Brazilian states of São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. They are also called Caingang and Aweikoma, though some sources list Kaingang and Aweikoma as separate groups...

s. Only a few settlers from São Paulo

São Paulo

were living there. This situation made the region vulnerable to attacks from neighboring countries. This fact forced the King of Portugal

Portugal

to decide to populate the region. For this, settlers from the Portuguese Azores

Azores

The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...

islands were sent to the coast.

To stimulate the immigration to Brazil, the king offered several benefits for the Azorean couples. Between 1748 and 1756, six thousand Portuguese

Portuguese people

from the Azores

Azores

moved to the coast of Santa Catarina

Santa Catarina (state)

. They were mainly newly married who were seeking a better life. At that time, the Azores were one of the poorest regions of Portugal. They established themselves mainly in the Santa Catarina Island, nowadays the region of Florianópolis. Later, some couples moved to Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul

, where they established Porto Alegre

Porto Alegre

, the capital. The Azoreans lived on fishing and agriculture, especially flour

Flour

Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...

. They composed over half of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina's population in the late 18th century.
The state of Paraná

Paraná (state)

was settled by colonists from São Paulo due to their proximity (Paraná was part of São Paulo until the mid-19th century).

With the development of cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, Africa

Africa

n slaves began arriving in large numbers. By 1822, Black

Black people

The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

s were 50% of Rio Grande do Sul's population. This number decreased to 25% in 1858 and to only 5.2% in 2005. Most of them came from Angola

Angola

.

After independence from Portugal (1822) the Brazilian government started to stimulate the arrival of a new wave of immigrants to settle the South. In 1824 they established São Leopoldo

São Leopoldo

São Leopoldo is an important Brazilian industrial city located in the south state of Rio Grande do Sul. It occupies a total area of 103.9 km² at circa 30 km from the State Capital, Porto Alegre. Climate is sub-tropical, with temperatures varying from 2°C minimum at Winter to more than...

, a German

Germany

community. Major Schaeffer, a German who was living in Brazil, was sent to Germany in order to bring immigrants. From Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate

, the Major brought the immigrants and soldiers. Settlers from Germany

Germany

were brought to work as small farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

s, because there were many land holdings without workers. To attract the immigrants, the Brazilian government had promised large tracts of land, where they could settle with their families and colonize the region. The first years were not easy. Many Germans died of tropical disease, while others left the colonies to find better living conditions. The German colony of São Leopoldo was a disaster. Nevertheless, in the following years, a further 4,830 Germans arrived at São Leopoldo, and then the colony started to develop, with the immigrants establishing the town of Novo Hamburgo

Novo Hamburgo

Novo Hamburgo is a city in the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.Its population is 237,044 . The city covers an area of 217 square kilometers, and the average temperature is 19°C, a mild one for the region...

(New Hamburg). From São Leopoldo and Novo Hamburgo, the German immigrants spread into others areas of Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul

, mainly close to sources of rivers. The whole region of Vale dos Sinos was populated by Germans. During the 1830s and part of the 1840s German immigration to Brazil was interrupted due to conflicts in the country (War of the Farrapos). The immigration restarted after 1845 with the creation of new colonies. The most important ones were Blumenau

Blumenau

Blumenau is a city in Vale do Itajaí, state of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil. It was founded on September 2, 1850 by Dr. Hermann Bruno Otto Blumenau along with 17 German immigrants. A few years later Fritz Müller migrated to Blumenau as well....

, in 1850, and Joinville

Joinville

Joinville is a city in Santa Catarina State, in the Southern Region of Brazil. Joinville is Santa Catarina's largest city. In 2010, its population has reached approximately 520,000, many of whom are of German descent....

in 1851, both in Santa Catarina state

Santa Catarina (state)

; these attracted thousands of German immigrants to the region.
In the next five decades, other 28 thousand Germans were brought to Rio Grande do Sul to work as small farmers in the countryside. Until 1914, it is estimated that 50 thousand Germans settled in this state.

Another immigration boom to this region started in 1875. Communities with Italian immigrants were also created in southern Brazil. The first colonies to be populated by Italians were created in the highlands of Rio Grande do Sul (Serra Gaúcha

Serra Gaúcha

The Serra Gaúcha, The Gaucho Highlands, is the mountainous region in the northeastern portion of Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil. This mountainous region is home to many Brazilians of German and Italian descent...

). These were Garibaldi

Garibaldi (city)

Garibaldi is a town in Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil. It has a population of 28,714 people, most of them of Italian descent. The city is famous for its wine and champagne productions. The name Garibaldi is an homage to the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Brazilian wife, Anita...

and Bento Gonçalves

Bento Gonçalves, Rio Grande do Sul

Bento Gonçalves is a town located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Created in 1875, it is one of the centres of the Italian immigration in Brazil. It is also known as the 'wine capital of Brazil', due to its vineyards and wine production...

. These immigrants were predominantly from Veneto

Veneto

, in northern Italy

Italy

. After five years, in 1880, the great numbers of Italian immigrants arriving caused the Brazilian government to create another Italian colony, Caxias do Sul

Caxias do Sul

Caxias do Sul is a city in Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil, situated in the state's mountainous Serra Gaúcha region. Coordinates: 29°10′0″ S, 51°11′0″ W....

. After initially settling in the government-promoted colonies, many of the Italian immigrants spread themselves into other areas of Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul

seeking further opportunities. They created many other Italian colonies on their own, mainly in highlands, because the lowlands were already populated by Germans and native gaúchos. The Italian established many vineyards in the region. Nowadays, the wine produced in these areas of Italian colonization in southern Brazil is much appreciated within the country, though little is available for export. In 1875, the first Italian colonies were established in Santa Catarina

Santa Catarina (state)

, which lies immediately to the north of Rio Grande do Sul. The colonies gave rise to towns such as Criciúma

Criciúma

Criciúma is a city in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. At , it is located 180 km south of Florianópolis, the state capital and around 900 km south of São Paulo...

, and later also spread further north, to Paraná

Paraná (state)

.

A significant number of Poles

Poles

have settled in Southern Brazil. The first immigrants arrived in 1869 and until 1959, it is estimated that over 100,000 Poles migrated to Brazil, 95% of whom were peasants. The State of Paraná

Paraná (state)

received the majority of Polish immigrants, who settled mainly in the region of Curitiba

Curitiba

Curitiba is the capital of the Brazilian state of Paraná. It is the largest city with the biggest economy of both Paraná and southern Brazil. The population of Curitiba numbers approximately 1.75 million people and the latest GDP figures for the city surpass US$61 billion according to...

, in the towns of Mallet, Cruz Machado, São Matheus do Sul, Irati, and União da Vitória. Russians

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

and Ukrainians

Ukrainians

Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

are present as well.

Southeast

The Southeastern region of Brazil is the ethnically most diverse part of the country. Whites make up 58.8% of its population, and those of mixed-race and African descent make up, together, 40.2%. It has the largest percentage of Asian Brazilian

Asian Brazilian

An Asian Brazilian is is a Brazilian citizen of full or partial Asian ancestry, who remains culturally connected to Asia, or an Asian-born person permanently residing in Brazil. Brazil received many immigrants from Asia, both from Middle East and East Asia...

s, composing 0.8%, and small Amerindian community (0.2%).

Southeast Brazil is home to the oldest Portuguese village in the Americas

Americas

, São Vicente, São Paulo

São Vicente, São Paulo

São Vicente is a coastal city of southern São Paulo, Brazil. Its estimated population in 2006 was 329,370 inhabitants.It was the first Portuguese permanent settlement in the Americas and the first capital of the Captaincy of São Vicente, now the state of São Paulo...

, established in 1532. The region, since the beginning of its colonization, is a melting pot

Melting pot

The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...

of Whites, Indians and Blacks. The Amerindians of the region were enslaved by the Portuguese. The race mixing between the Indian females and their White masters produced the Bandeirante, the colonial inhabitant of São Paulo

São Paulo (state)

, who formed expeditions that crossed the interior of Brazil and greatly increased the Portuguese colonial territory. The main language spoken by these people of mixed Indian/Portuguese heritage was Língua geral

Língua Geral

Língua Geral is the name of two distinct linguae francae spoken in Brazil, the língua geral paulista , now extinct; and the língua geral amazônica , whose modern descendant is Nheengatu....

, a language that mixed Tupi and Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

words.

In the late 17th century the Bandeirantes found gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

in the area that nowadays is Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais

. A gold rush

Gold rush

A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...

took place in Brazil, and thousands of Portuguese colonists arrived during this period. The confrontation between the Bandeirantes and the Portuguese for obtaining possession of the mines led to the Emboabas' War

Emboabas' War

The Emboabas' War , was a war waged in the early 18th century between two generations of Portuguese settlers in the vice-kingdom of Brazil, then merely the Capitaincy of São Vicente....

. The Portuguese won the war. The Amerindian culture declined, giving space to a stronger Portuguese cultural domination. In order to control the richness, the Portuguese Crown moved the capital of Brazil from Salvador, Bahia

Salvador, Bahia

to Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

. Thousands of African slaves were brought to work in the gold mines. They were landed in Rio de Janeiro and sent to other regions. By the late 18th century, Rio de Janeiro was an "African city": most of its inhabitants were slaves. No other place in the world had so many slaves, since the end of the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. In 1808 the Portuguese Royal Family, fleeing from Napoleon, took charge in Rio de Janeiro. Some 15 thousand Portuguese nobles moved to Brazil. The region changed a lot, becoming more European.

After independence and principally after 1850, Southeast Brazil was "inundated" by Europe

Europe

an immigrants, who were attracted by the government to replace the African slaves in the coffee

Coffee

plantations. Most immigrants landed in the Port of Santos

Port of Santos

The Port of Santos is located in the city of Santos, Brazil. As of 2006, it is the busiest container port in Latin America. It possesses a wide variety of cargo handling terminals - solid and liquid bulk, containers and general loads. It is Brazil's leading port in container traffic...

and have been forwarded to the coffee farms within São Paulo. The vast majority of the immigrants came from Italy

Italy

. Brazil attracted nearly 5 million immigrants between 1870 and 1953. The large amounts of Italians are visible in many parts of Southeast Brazil. Their descendants are nowadays predominant in many areas. Northeast São Paulo is 65% Italian, for example.

The arrival of immigrants from several places of Europe, the Middle-East and Asia

Asia

produced an ethnically diverse population. The city of Bastos

Bastos

For the Brazilian footballer who plays for Olympique Lyonnais, see Michel Bastos.Bastos is a municipality in the state of São Paulo in Brazil. The population in 2003 is 21,343 and the area is 170.93 km². The elevation is 445 m. It is also a Portuguese surname.-History:The name originated from...

, in São Paulo, is 11.4% Japanese. The city of São Paulo is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan

Japan

itself.

Northeast

The population of Northeast Brazil is a result of an intensive race mixing, which has occurred in the region for more than four centuries. According to the 2006 census people reported as "brown" make up 62.5% of the population. Those reported as Black account for 7.8%.

This region did not have much effect from the massive European immigration that took place in Southern Brazil in the late 19th century and first decades of the 20th century. The Northeast has been a poorer region of Brazil since the decadence of sugar cane plantations in the late 17th century, so its economy did not demand immigrants.

The ethnic composition of the population starts in the 16th century. The Portuguese settlers rarely brought women, which led to relationships with the Indian women. Later, interracial relationships occurred between Portuguese and African females. The coast, in the past a place to the arrival of millions of Black slaves (mostly from modern-day Angola

Angola

, Nigeria

Nigeria

and Benin

Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...

) to embrace the plantations of sugar-cane, is where nowadays there is a predominance of Mulatto

Mulatto

es, those of Black and White ancestry. Salvador, Bahia

Salvador, Bahia

is considered the largest Black city outside of Africa, with over 80% of its inhabitants being African-Brazilians

Afro-Brazilian

In Brazil, the term "preto" is one of the five categories used by the Brazilian Census, along with "branco" , "pardo" , "amarelo" and "indígena"...

. In the interior, there is a predominance of Indian and White mixture.

North

Northern Brazil, largely covered by the Amazon rainforest

Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...

, is the Brazilian region with the largest Amerindian influences, both in culture and ethnicity. Inhabited by diverse indigenous tribes, this part of Brazil was reached by Portuguese and Spanish

Spanish people

The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....

colonists in the 17th century, but it started to be populated by non-Indians only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The exploitation of rubber used in the growing industries of automobiles, has emerged a huge migration to the region. Many people from the poor Northeast Brazil, mostly Ceará

Ceará

Ceará is one of the 27 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is currently the 8th largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the main touristic destinations in Brazil. The state capital is the city of...

, moved to the Amazon area. The contact between the Indians and the northeastern rubbers created the base of the ethnic composition of the region, with its mixed-race majority.

Central-West

The Central-West region of Brazil was inhabited by diverse Indians when the Portuguese arrived in the early 18th century. The Portuguese came to explore the precious stones that were found there. Contact between the Portuguese and the Indians created a mixed-race population. Until the mid-20th century, Central-West Brazil had a very small population. The situation changed with the construction of Brasilia

Brasília

Brasília is the capital city of Brazil. The name is commonly spelled Brasilia in English. The city and its District are located in the Central-West region of the country, along a plateau known as Planalto Central. It has a population of about 2,557,000 as of the 2008 IBGE estimate, making it the...

, the new capital of Brazil, in 1960. Many workers were attracted to the region, mostly from northeastern Brazil.

A new wave of settlers started arriving from the 1970s. With the mechanization of agriculture in the South of Brazil, many rural workers of German

Germany

and Italian

Italy

origin migrated to Central-West Brazil. In some areas, they are already the majority of the population.

Education and health

The Federal Constitution of 1988 and the 1996 General Law of Education in Brazil (LDB) attributed to the Federal Government, states, Federal District

Brazilian Federal District

The Federal District is set apart for Brasília, the capital of Brazil. Located in a region called Planalto Central, or Central Plateau, the Federal District is divided in 29 administrative regions. Brasilia - place where the three branches of the Federal Government are located - is the main...

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.

As set out by the Brazilian Constitution

Politics of Brazil

The politics of Brazil take place in a framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic, where by the President is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system...

, the main responsibility for basic education is attributed to the states and municipalities. Hence, a historical feature of Brazilian basic education

Basic education

Basic education refers to the whole range of educational activities taking place in various settings , that aim to meet basic learning needs. According to the International Standard Classification of Education , basic education comprises primary education and lower secondary 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

Primary education

A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...

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

Higher education

Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...

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. However, Brazilian analysts 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

Politics of Brazil

, the most serious health problems are:

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 inhabitants caused by heart and circulatory diseases, along with 72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants caused by cancer.
Mortality caused by external causes (transportation, violence and suicide): 71.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants (14.9% of all deaths in the country), reaching 82.3 deaths in the southeast region.

Religion

According to the IBGE

IBGE

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE , is the agency responsible for statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil...

census: 74% are Roman Catholics

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

(about 130 million); 15.4% are Protestants (about 28 million); 7.4% consider themselves agnostics

Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....

, atheists

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

or without a religion (about 12 million); 1.3% are followers of Spiritism

Spiritism

Spiritism is a loose corpus of religious faiths having in common the general belief in the survival of a spirit after death. In a stricter sense, it is the religion, beliefs and practices of the people affiliated to the International Spiritist Union, based on the works of Allan Kardec and others...

(about 2.2 million); 0.3% are followers of African traditional religions such as Candomblé

Candomblé

Candomblé is an African-originated or Afro-Brazilian religion, practised chiefly in Brazil by the "povo de santo" . It originated in the cities of Salvador, the capital of Bahia and Cachoeira, at the time one of the main commercial crossroads for the distribution of products and slave trade to...

and Umbanda

Umbanda

Umbanda is an Afro-Brazilian religion that blends African religions with Catholicism, Spiritism and Kardecism, and considerable indigenous lore....

; 1.7% are members of other religions. Some of these are Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...

(1,100,000), Latter-day Saints (200,000), Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

(215,000), Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

(86,000), and Islam

Islam in Brazil

Islam in Brazil was first practiced by African slaves. The early Brazilian Muslims led the largest slave revolt in Brazil, which then had the largest slave population of the world. The next significant migration of Muslims was by Arabs from Syria and Lebanon...

(27,000) and some practice a mixture of different religions, such as Catholicism, Candomblé, and indigenous American religions .

Brazil has the largest Roman Catholic

Roman Catholicism in Brazil

The Roman Catholic Church in Brazil is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, curia in Rome, and the very influential Brazilian Conference of Bishops , composed by over four hundred primary and auxiliary bishops and archbishops. There are over 250...

population in the world.

Followers of Protestantism

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

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

Islam in Brazil

Islam in Brazil

was first practiced by African slaves. Today, the Muslim population in Brazil is made up mostly of Arab

Arab

immigrants. The US Department of State claims there is a recent trend of increased conversions to Islam among non-Arab citizens.

The largest population of Buddhists in Latin America lives in Brazil. This is mostly because Brazil has the largest Japanese population

Japanese people

outside Japan

Japan

.

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".

According to IBGE 2000 Census, the following are the largest religious denominations in Brazil, with those with more than a half million members only shown.

Rank	Group	Members	Other information
1	Roman Catholic Church Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...	135 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 Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity... 's membership attends the church regularly. The Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney The Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney was established on 18 January 2002 by Pope John Paul II for traditionalist Catholic clergy and laity within the Diocese of Campos in Brazil. It is the only Personal Apostolic Administration in existence... in Campos dos Goytacazes Campos dos Goytacazes Campos dos Goytacazes is a municipality and city located in the northern area of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, with a population of 463,545 inhabitants. Its area is 4,031.910 km², which makes it the largest municipality in the state and its elevation is 14 m... is one of the most leading traditionalist Catholic Traditionalist Catholic Traditionalist Catholics are Roman Catholics who believe that there should be a restoration of many or all of the liturgical forms, public and private devotions and presentations of Catholic teachings which prevailed in the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council... groups in the world. See Roman Catholicism in Brazil Roman Catholicism in Brazil The Roman Catholic Church in Brazil is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, curia in Rome, and the very influential Brazilian Conference of Bishops , composed by over four hundred primary and auxiliary bishops and archbishops. There are over 250... .
2	Non-religious	12.5 million	including, but not limited to, Atheists Atheism Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities... and Agnostics
3	Assemblies of God (Assembléias de Deus)	8.4 million	General Convention of the Assemblies of God (Affiliated with the American Assemblies of God Assemblies of God The Assemblies of God , officially the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, is a group of over 140 autonomous but loosely-associated national groupings of churches which together form the world's largest Pentecostal denomination... , Springfield, MO): 3,6 Million. 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: 2,3 Million, such as Bethesda Assemblies of God.
4	Baptist Baptist Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...	3.1 million	Brazilian Baptist Convention: 1,2 Million adherents. Affiliated to US Southern Baptists. National Baptist Convention: 1 Million. Pentecostal Baptists. Independent Baptist Convention: 400,000. Scandinavian Baptists. Other Baptists: 400,000.
5	Christian Congregation of Brazil Christian Congregation of Brazil The Christian Congregation in Brazil is an evangelical denomination founded in that country by the Italian-American missionary Luigi Francescon .-History:...	2.4 million
6	Spiritist	2.2 million	Kardec Spiritualist; does not include Afro-Brazilian Afro-Brazilian In Brazil, the term "preto" is one of the five categories used by the Brazilian Census, along with "branco" , "pardo" , "amarelo" and "indígena"... Sincretists. Their influence is much larger than their numbers.
7	Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus)	2.1 million	Neo-Pentecostal Movement.
8	Foursquare Gospel Church	1.3 million	Classic Pentocostals in US, but second-wave pentecostals in Brazil.
9	Adventist Adventist Adventism is a Christian movement which began in the 19th century, in the context of the Second Great Awakening revival in the United States. The name refers to belief in the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It was started by William Miller, whose followers became known as Millerites... s	1.2 million	Seventh-day Adventist Church Seventh-day Adventist Church The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ... : 900,000. Promise Adventist Church: 150,000. Indigenous Pentecostal Adventists. Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement The Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement is a Protestant Christian denomination, part of the Sabbatarian adventist movement, and formed as the result of a schism within the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Europe during World War I over the position its leadership took on proper Sabbath observance... : 50,000. Other Adventists: 100,000.
10	Jehovah's Witnesses	1.1 million
11	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints	1 million
12	Lutherans	1 million	Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confission. Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil, or Igreja Evangélica Luterana do Brasil , was founded in 1904 in Rio Grande do Sul, a southern state in Brazil. The IELB is a conservative, confessional Lutheran Synod that holds the Book of Concord. It started as a mission of the Lutheran Church -... . Other Lutherans.
13	Calvinists	981,000	Presbyterian Church of Brazil: 500,000. Independent Presbyterian Church: 250,00. Congregationalists: 150,000. Other Calvinists:100,000.
14	God is Love Pentecostal Church	774,000	Divine Healing movement.
15	Afro-Brazilian	525,000	Umbanda (397,000) and Candomblé (128,000)
16	Brazilian Catholics	500,000
-	Others and no religion declared	3.5 million

Languages

Portuguese

Portuguese language

is the only official language of Brazil. 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.

Many Amerindian languages are spoken daily in indigenous communities, primarily in Northern Brazil. Although many of these communities have significant contact with Portuguese, today there are incentives stimulating preservation and the teaching of native languages. According to SIL International

SIL International

SIL International is a U.S.-based, worldwide, Christian non-profit organization, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into local languages,...

, 133 native American languages are currently endangered. Some of the largest indigenous language groups include Arawak, Carib, Macro-Gê and Tupi. In 2006, the City of São Gabriel da Cachoeira

São Gabriel da Cachoeira

São Gabriel da Cachoeira is a city and a Municipality located on the Northern shores of the Rio Negro River, in the region of Cabeça do Cachorro, Amazonas state, Brazil. Between 1952 and 1966, it was officially called Uaupés, after the nearby Vaupés River. Most of its inhabitants are indigenous...

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

Portuguese language

.

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

Brazilian German

Brazilian German is a generic name for German dialects spoken in the southern States of Brazil ....

dialects, such as Riograndenser Hunsrückisch

Riograndenser Hunsrückisch

Riograndenser Hunsrückisch , spoken in parts of Brazil, is a Brazilian West Germanic language derived primarily from the Hunsrückisch dialect of the German Language....

and the Pomeranian language

Pomeranian language

The Pomeranian language is a group of dialects from the Lechitic cluster of the West Slavic languages. In medieval contexts, it refers to the dialects spoken by the Slavic Pomeranians...

, and also the Talian

Talian

Talian is a dialect spoken mainly in the wine-producing area of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Talian is sometimes called Vêneto ...

, based on the Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

Venetian language

Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...

. In the city of São Paulo

São Paulo

, Levantine Arabic

Levantine Arabic

Levantine Arabic is a broad variety of Arabic spoken in the 100 to 200 km-wide Eastern Mediterranean coastal strip...

, Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

and Korean

Korean language

Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

can be heard in the immigrant neighborhoods, such as Liberdade

Liberdade

Liberdade is the name of a district in the subprefecture of Sé, in São Paulo, Brazil. It is home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan in the world and has been growing since the 1950s....

.

English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

is also part of the official high school curriculum in most of the Brazilian states, but very few Brazilians are fluent. Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

is understood to varying degrees by many Brazilians, especially on the borders with Argentina

Argentina

, Paraguay

Paraguay

and Uruguay

Uruguay

Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...

Demographic Breakdown

Population

According to the 2008 PNAD (National Household Sample Survey), conducted by the IBGE

IBGE

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE , is the agency responsible for statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil...

, the Brazilian Statistics bureau, there were about 189,953,000 inhabitants in 2008. As of the latest (2010) census, the Brazlian government estimates its population at 190.8 mn.

The population of Brazil is estimated based on various sources from 1550 to 1850. The first official census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

took place in 1872. From this year, every 10 years (with some exceptions) the population is counted.

Brazil is the fifth most populated country in the world.

1550 - 15,000
1600 - 100,000
1660 - 184,000
1700 - 300,000
1766 - 1,500.000
1800 - 3,250.000
1820 - 4,717,000
1850 - 7,256,000
1872 - 9,930,478
1890 - 14,333,915
1900 - 17,438,434
1920 - 30,635,605
1940 - 41,236,315
1950 - 51,944,397
1960 - 70,119,071
1970 - 93,139.037
1980 - 119,070,865
1991 - 146,917,459
1996 - 157,079,573
2000 - 169,544,443
2005 - 183,886,761
2010 - 190,755,799 [Source: Government of Brazil]

Population distribution in Brazil is very uneven. The majority of Brazilians live within 300 kilometers of the coast, while the interior in the Amazon Basin is almost empty. Therefore, the densely populated areas are on the coast and the sparsely populated areas are in the interior. This historical pattern is little changed by recent movements into the interior.

CIA World Factbook demographic statistics

The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.

Age structure

0-14 years: 26.7% (male 27,092,880/female 26,062,244)

15-64 years: 66.8% (male 65,804,108/female 67,047,725)

65 years and over: 6.4% (male 5,374,230/female 7,358,082) (2009 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: 19.67 deaths/1,000 live births

Male: 26.28 deaths/1,000 live births

Female: 17.89 deaths/1,000 live births (2010 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

total population: 72.24 years

Male: 68.8 years

Female: 76.38 years (2008 est.)

Ethnic groups

The minority ethnic groups in Brazil are various non-assimilated indigenous tribes

Indigenous peoples in Brazil

The Indigenous peoples in Brazil comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country prior to the European invasion around 1500...

, comprising less than 1% of the population, who live in officially delimited reservations and either avoid contact with other peoples, 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 "skin colour", or "race", the 2008 PNAD gives 48.43% White, 43.80% Multirracial, 6.84% Black, 0.58% Asian, 0.28% Amerindian, 0.07% undeclared.

The main ethnic origin

Ethnic origin

The concept of ethnic origin is an attempt to classify people, not according to their current nationality, but according to where their ancestors came from...

s of Brazilians are: Bantu, Ewe

Ewe people

The Ewe are a people located in the southeast corner of Ghana, east of the Volta River, in an area now described as the Volta Region, in southern Togo and western Benin...

, German, Guarani, Italian

Italian language

, Japanese, Lebanese

Lebanon

, Polish

Poles

, Portuguese

Portuguese people

, Spanish

Spanish people

The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....

, Syrian, Tupi, Ukrainian

Ukrainians

Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

, and Yoruba

Yoruba people

The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...

Literacy

Definition: age 15 and over can read and write

total population: 91.6%

male: 90.4%

female: 91.8% (2010 est.)

Largest cities

Immigration

History of immigration

IBGE's 1998 PME

Emigration

Racial composition

Aboriginal Brazilians

Black Brazilians

Asian Brazilians

Pardo Brazilians

White Brazilians

Composition of Brazil, genetic studies

Autosomal studies

South

Southeast

Northeast

North

Central-West

Education and health

Religion

Languages

Demographic Breakdown

Population

CIA World Factbook demographic statistics

Age structure

Sex ratio

Infant mortality rate

Life expectancy at birth

Ethnic groups

Literacy

See also