Demographics of Rio de Janeiro - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Rio de Janeiro Compared
IBGE	Rio area	Rio State	Brazil
White	53%	55%	50%
Black	12%	12%	7%
Brown (Multiracial)	33%	32%	42%
Asian	0.5%	0.5%	0.5%
Total population	6,093,472	16,010,429	191,241,714
Population density	12,382.7/sq mi	922/sq mi	57/sq mi
Median per capita income (2006)	R$20,851	R$17,695	R$10,465

The demographics of Rio de Janeiro City
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 evidence of a uniquely large and ethnically diverse

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...

metropolis

Metropolis

A metropolis is a very large city or urban area which is a significant economic, political and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections and communications...

. It is the second largest city in 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...

with a population defined by a long history of international immigration

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....

.

Rio de Janeiro City is home to more than 6 million people, accounting for about 35% of the population of Rio de Janeiro State

Rio de Janeiro (state)

Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 states of Brazil.Rio de Janeiro has the second largest economy of Brazil behind only São Paulo state.The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast...

. Portuguese remains the most widely spoken language and Rio de Janeiro is the second city in the Portuguese speaking world.

Demographics

The main ethnic group in Rio de Janeiro are the Portuguese, the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro has more people of Portuguese descent than Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

. 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....

explorers landed in Guanabara Bay

Guanabara Bay

Guanabara Bay is an oceanic bay located in southeastern Brazil in the state of Rio de Janeiro. On its western shore lies the city of Rio de Janeiro, and on its eastern shore the cities of Niterói and São Gonçalo. Four other municipalities surround the bay's shores...

in January 1502. They named the area "Rio de Janeiro" (January River) after mistaking the bay for the mouth of a river. Portuguese knight Estácio de Sá officially founded the city March 1, 1565, with the name São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro (Saint Sebastian of Rio de Janeiro), paying homage to King Sebastian I of Portugal. For sometime, it was referred to as São Sebastião.

Though the main industries in Rio's first years were fishing and sugar plantations, the discovery of gold and diamonds in the neighboring 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...

state brought an influx of people

People

People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:* as the plural of person or a group of people People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:*...

and an economic boom. With Rio's significance increasing, the colonial administration moved from Salvador

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...

, in northeast Brazil, to Rio in 1763. In 1808, the Portuguese Royal Family moved to Rio in order to escape from Napoleon's invasion of 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...

, forcing some residents out of their homes in order to make room for the noblemen that followed.

Rio's inhabitants (called Carioca

Carioca

Carioca is a Portuguese adjective or demonym that is used to refer to the native inhabitants of the city of Rio de Janeiro - capital of the homonym state , in Brazil...

s, after the Tupi Indian word meaning "white man's home") represent a microcosm of Brazil's ethnic diversity and include people of European, African, and mixed ancestry

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"...

. In Brazil, people of African descent (referred to as "Afro-Brazilians" by outside scholars) can be further characterized using such terms as pardos and pretos; the latter term is used to refer to those with the darkest skin colour. Although skin colour is largely the basis of the distinction between pardo and preto, it is a distinction that is subjective as well as objective, and it is self-attributed.

According to an autosomal DNA study from 2009, conducted on a school in the poor periphery of Rio de Janeiro, the "pardos" there were found to be on average 80% European, and the "whites" (who thought of themselves as "very mixed") were found out to carry very little Amerindian and/or African admixtures. "The results of the tests of genomic ancestry are quite different from the self made estimates of European ancestry", say the researchers. In general, the test results showed that European ancestry is far more important than the students thought it would be. The "pardos" for example thought of themselves as 1/3 European, 1/3 African and 1/3 Amerindian before the tests, and yet their ancestry on average reached 80% European.

Genetic composition of Rio de Janeiro 2011 study
Ancestry	Amerindian	African	European
Rio de Janeiro	7.4%	18.9%	73.70%

Many Brazilians of colour consider it more advantageous to identify themselves as pardos and therefore do so. About one-third of Rio's pardo

Pardo

s are clearly mulattoes (mulatos; people of mixed African and 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 ancestry), while the vast majority of the city's small preto population do not claim any known European ancestry. Cariocas are primarily Roman Catholic, although many simultaneously observe the practices of the Umbanda religion.

People of European ancestry

Europe

live predominantly in the affluent neighbourhoods of Flamengo

Flamengo

Flamengo is the name of a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.- History :It is the Portuguese word for Flemish, and it was given to the nearby beach because it was the place where the Dutch sailor Olivier van Noort tried to invade the city in 1599...

, Copacabana

Copacabana

Copacabana is a borough located in the southern zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It's known for its 4 km beach, which is one of the most famous in the world.- History :...

, Ipanema

Ipanema

For other uses, see Ipanema . For the British rock band, see Ipanema .Ipanema is a neighborhood located in the southern region of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between Leblon and Arpoador...

-Leblon

Leblon

Leblon is an affluent neighbourhood and a beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It's a neighbourhood of upper class people in the southern zone of the city...

, Jardim Botânico

Jardim Botânico

Jardim Botânico is a residential neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, located north of Ipanema and Leblon, just across Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas and east of Gávea. Jardim Botânico lies in the affluent "Zona Sul" of Rio de Janeiro....

, and Gávea

Gávea

Gávea is an affluent residential neighborhood located in the Southern Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro. It borders the São Conrado, Leblon, Lagoa and Jardim Botânico neighborhoods and is famous for its high concentration of artists and intellectuals. PUC-Rio, one of the most important...

in the South Zone; in Tijuca

Tijuca

Tijuca is a neighbourhood of the Northern Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It comprises the region of Saens Peña and Afonso Pena squares. According to the 2000 Census, the district has close to 150,000 inhabitants...

in the North Zone; and stretching from Barra da Tijuca

Barra da Tijuca

Barra da Tijuca is a famous neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, located southwest of the city on the Atlantic Ocean. Barra, as it is popularly known, will have most of the venues of the 2016 Summer Olympics, which will be the first edition held in South America. Barra is well-known for its...

past Recreio dos Bandeirantes in the West Zone. The northern suburbs, in contrast, contain much larger proportions of mulattoes, as do many districts of the North Zone. The heaviest concentrations of pardos and pretos are found in Rio's favelas, regardless of location. The rich mosaic of areas of the North Zone are socially differentiated by the average level of income

Income

Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...

of their inhabitants, closely reflected in the urban infrastructure and public services that are locally available. While the ring of neighbourhood

Neighbourhood

A neighbourhood or neighborhood is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town or suburb. Neighbourhoods are often social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among members. "Researchers have not agreed on an exact definition...

s closest to the Centre is deteriorated, the next ring contains more-prosperous areas. Farther out, however, poverty increases. Both distance from the Centre and elevation serve as determining factors for the location of favelas, since they have been established on all available steep hillsides as well as in undesirable swampy lowlands throughout the Greater Rio de Janeiro

Greater Rio de Janeiro

The Greater Rio de Janeiro is a large metropolitan area located in Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil, the second largest in Brazil and third largest in South America...

area.

Historically, Rio's population grew primarily as a result of domestic migration

Human migration

Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic...

, which in some years accounted for two-thirds of the city's increase, although many people immigrated from European countries as well. Government policies began restricting foreign immigration in the 1930s, causing the proportion of foreigners in the former Federal District to decline from 30 percent in 1890 to 7 percent in 1960. By that time, almost half of the city's population were Brazil

Brazil

ian migrants, most of them born in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Espírito Santo. The largest groups of foreign born

Foreign born

Foreign born is a term used to describe a person born outside of their country of residence. Foreign born are often non-citizens, but are also frequently naturalized citizens of a country....

immigrants in the Greater Rio area included those from Portugal

Portugal

, 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...

, and 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...

.

The 1950s were Rio's decade of greatest proportional

Proportionality (mathematics)

In mathematics, two variable quantities are proportional if one of them is always the product of the other and a constant quantity, called the coefficient of proportionality or proportionality constant. In other words, are proportional if the ratio \tfrac yx is constant. We also say that one...

growth

Growth

Growth refers to an increase in some quantity over time.The quantity can be:*Physical *Abstract ....

, with the city expanding by nearly 40 percent and the suburbs almost doubling. However, with the transfer of the national capital to Brasília

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...

in 1960, the rhythm of population growth

Population growth

Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....

in the city declined. Most internal migrants were directed to other municipalities of the metropolitan region

Greater Rio de Janeiro

The Greater Rio de Janeiro is a large metropolitan area located in Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil, the second largest in Brazil and third largest in South America...

, leaving Rio to rely more on the birth rate within its own boundaries. Still, the city's population grew steadily and did not begin to taper off until the 1990s, when Rio's limited space, then near saturation, served to restrict further growth. With improved access to the West Zone beginning in the late 20th century, growth again began to pick up.

At the beginning of the 21st century, more than four decades since Rio ceased to be the national capital, a large proportion of federal employees were still based there, along with tens of thousands of state and city workers. Moreover, retirees from public

Public

In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individuals, and the public is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science,...

service

Public services

Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income...

jobs

Job (role)

A job is a regular activity performed in exchange for payment. A person usually begins a job by becoming an employee, volunteering, or starting a business. The duration of a job may range from an hour to a lifetime . If a person is trained for a certain type of job, they may have a profession...

continued to constitute a significant element of Rio's population.

Demographics

See also