Pre-Trip Information

Cultural Demography

With approximately 200 million inhabitants, Brazil has the largest population in Latin America and the fifth largest in the world. The majority of its citizenry lives in the south-central area, which includes the industrial cities of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte. Rapid urban growth in Brazil has aided economic development but has also created serious social, environmental and political problems for major cities. In recent years, over 81 percent of the total population has been living in urban areas.


Ethnicity

Four major groups make up the Brazilian population. They are the Portuguese, who colonized in the 16^th century; central and west Africans, who were brought to Brazil as slaves; indigenous people of the Tupi and Guarani language groups; and various other European, Middle Eastern, and Asian immigrant groups, who have settled i n Brazil since the mid-19^th century. From 1875 until 1960, about five million people immigrated to Brazil, settling mainly in the four southern states of Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul. Immigrants came mainly from Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland, the Middle East, and Japan. (The largest Japanese community outside Japan is in Sao Paulo.) Intermarriage between the Portuguese and indigenous people or African slaves as well as Brazil's many waves of immigration have contributed to a diverse ethnic and cultural heritage. Despite class distinctions, national identity is strong.

Indigenous full-blooded Indians, located mainly in the northern and western border regions and in the upper Amazon Basin, currently constitute less than one percent of the population. Their numbers are declining as contact with the outside world and commercial expansion into the interior increase. Brazilian government programs to establish reservations and to provide other f orms of assistance have existed for years but are controversial and often ineffective.


Language

Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas. Approximately 80 percent of all Brazilians belong to the Roman Catholic Church, and most others are Protestant or follow practices derived from African religions, such as Candomble, or practices stemming from a combination of African, Indigenous and European religions, such as Umbanda.


Human Development

Brazil's infant mortality rate is 21.86 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to a recent estimate. The life expectancy at birth for the total population was estimated to be 72.26 years of age. The literacy rate of Brazil's total population was estimated to be 88.6 percent;  88.4 percent for males and 88.8 percent for females.

A notable measure of human development is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is formulated by the United Nations Development Program. The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. The HDI placed Brazil in the high human development category, at 73rd place, in a recent ranking of 169 countries.

Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.