About Brazil: Population

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Brazil is the main economy of Latin America, the biggest country of the region and the only Portuguese-speaking nation of America. Without Alaska and Hawaii the United States would be a little bit smaller than Brazil.

The word Brasil (written with “s” in Portuguese) is originally an adjective used to describe the color of the brazilwood, a wood red like ember (brasa). The national adjective brasileiro (Brazilian) is quite particular because it brings the suffix “-eiro” (“-er” in English, like in writer, engineer or teacher) that usually refers to action or job. Translated to English or other languages this suffix is replaced by another one commonly used in national adjectives (brésilien, brasiliano, brasileño, Brasilianisch). Brasileiros were originally the people that lived and/or worked in the extraction of the brazilwood, a depreciative term in the early times indeed, and then became the name of a people.

Brazil's population surpasses 210 million and it is very mixed: in the early colonial period, Lusitanian and native Indians; then, due to the lack of labor force in the plantations, African slaves were largely brought to Brazil and when the independence was declared they were the main ethnic group.

During the colonial age, Dutch colonizers have made some settlements, mainly in the Northeast. It’s not hard to find Brazilian men called “Vanderlei” or other names that begin with “Vander”. Such names that may sound a little bit strange for Portugueses are an influence of the Dutch presence in the country (van der).

In the later 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, after the end of the slavery, the immigration of European and Asian workers were highly stimulated by the government that had a dream of whitening the population. Germans, Italians, Japaneses, Syrian-Lebaneses are the main immigrant groups.

From the last decades of the 20th century, the flow of Bolivians, Cubans and Haitians is remarkable as well, to a lesser extent, the presence of Africans immigrants.

There are more different national and ethnic groups in the United States than in Brazil. Nevertheless the Brazilian population is much more mixed than the North American. The integration of the immigrants along the 20th century was successful and we can see it in the names of some former presidents: Jair Bolsonaro, Michel Temer, Dilma Roussef, Fernando Collor (derived from Köhler), Ernesto Geisel.

The distribution of the population is very irregular. There are areas overpopulated and regions sparsely inhabited. The occupation of the innermost portions of the country is closely related to the expansion of the agricultural frontier and commodities for export such as soybeans.

Almost 90% of the population live in urban areas.The colored areas of the map are the most inhabited areas of the Brazilian territory.