Besides being the largest country in territory in Latin America Brazil also has the largest population, almost 186 million according to preliminary figures from the latest census, released by the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute, IBGE.
The exact figure is 185,712,000 and represents a 9.5% increase over the last census in 2000. However this was 3% less than the 191.5 million calculated by IBGE for this year based on birth and death rates and immigration figures.
The IBGE managed census collected information between August first and October 31st, having visited 67,275,000 households in 5,565 Brazilian municipalities.
Primary data indicates that São Paulo, the industrial hub and the richest of the country is the most populated of 27 states, 39.9 million and recently created Roraima in the Amazon region the least populated.
São Paulo city is Brazil’s most populous municipality with 10.66 million residents. This does not include those in its metropolitan area where practically a similar number live. Brasília, the national capital registered a 20% population increase compared with the 2000 census
The full data of the census is scheduled to be released next November 29. The previous census was done in 2000 when the total resident population in Brazil was 169 million.
After São Paulo comes Rio de Janeiro, with 5.9 million residents; Salvador, 2.5 million; Brasilia, 2.46 million; Fortaleza, 2.31 million; Belo Horizonte, 2.25 million; Manaus, 1.71 million; Curitiba, 1.67 million; Recife, 1.47 million; and Porto Alegre, 1.35 million.
