Brazil. People. Population

Population. Brazil ranks as the world's fifth largest nation in population. Only China, India, the United States, and Indonesia have more people. About half the people of South America live in Brazil.

The population of Brazil is unevenly distributed. About 80 percent of Brazil's people live within 200 miles (320 kilometers) of the Atlantic coast By contrast, only about 7 percent live in the Amazon Region in northwestern and north-central Brazil. This region is larger than the United States west of the Mississippi River, but thick forests cover most of it.

Population density. The population of Brazil is distributed unevenly. The vast majority of Brazil's people live along the Atlantic coast, but the Interior of the country is thinly populated.

Various economic developments have influenced patterns of settlement in Brazil. During the mid-1500's, many Portuguese colonists came to northeastern Brazil and established large sugar cane plantations. The discovery of gold and diamonds in east-central Brazil in the 1690's and early 1700's drew settlers to that region.

During the 1800's, the production of coffee in southeastern Brazil offered the chief hope for people seeking economic opportunity in Brazil, and large numbers of Brazilians and European immigrants rushed there. In the late 1800's, many Japanese immigrants began to come to that area to grow coffee, cotton, and tea.

About 1870, a rubber boom in the Amazon Region drew a wave of fortune-seeking Brazilians and foreigners. After World War II ended in 1945, fast-growing industries in the southeastern coastal cities attracted great numbers of Brazilians from rural areas.

The coastal cities, however, could not provide jobs for many of the newcomers. Unemployment, overcrowding, and other problems developed. As a result, the Brazilian government has tried to attract people from the crowded coastal cities to the underpopulated interior.

In 1960, it moved the nation's capital from Rio de Janeiro, on the coast, to Brasilia, about 600 miles (970 kilometers) inland on the central plateau. The development of agricultural and mineral resources attracted many new settlers to the Amazon Region during the mid-1900's. In the 1970's, the government began to offer free land to people who would settle in the Amazon Region.

Ancestry. Brazil has three main ethnic groups—people of African descent, people of European origins, and people of mixed ancestry. The mixed groups include caboclos (people of mixed European and Indian ancestry) and mulattoes (people of mixed African and European descent).

Statistics on the ethnic composition of the population tend to be unreliable. According to the Brazilian government, people of European descent make up about 55 percent of the nation's population and those of African descent include about 6 percent. But large numbers of people are of mixed African and European ancestry. American Indians and Asians account for about 1 percent of the population.

Indians make up less than 1 percent of Brazil's people. Most Brazilian Indians, such as the Bororos shown here, live in forests of the Amazon Region and follow traditional ways of life.

The Tupi-Guarani and other Indian groups lived in what is now Brazil long before Europeans arrived. The country had from 1 million to 5 million Indians when the first Portuguese came. The early Portuguese colonists tried to make the Indians work on plantations. But these efforts failed, and so Africans were brought as slaves to replace the Indians. By the early 1800's, Brazil had about 900,000 Europeans, 2 million Africans, and 1 million Indians and people of mixed ancestry.

Brazil declared itself independent in 1822, and immigrants began to arrive from many European countries. The main groups included Germans, Italians, and Spaniards, as well as Portuguese. Most of the immigrants came to work in the rapidly growing coffee industry in southeastern Brazil. About half settled in what is now the state of Sao Paulo.

Today, most Brazilians of European descent live in the southern part of the country. Brazilians of African descent, caboclos, and mulattoes form the major groups in the coastal cities and towns north of Rio de Janeiro, particularly in the northeast. Brazil's Indian population totals approximately 200,000. Most of the Indians live in the Amazon Region.

Brazil's ethnic groups generally get along well with one another. Racial discrimination in Brazil is less widespread than in many other countries with people of several ethnic groups. But Brazilians of European descent have had better educational opportunities. As a result, they hold most of the higher jobs in government and industry. Many Brazilians of non-European descent have excelled in the arts, entertainment, and sports.

Almost all of Brazil's people speak Portuguese, the nation's official language. Indian groups in the Amazon area still use traditional languages.