Demographics of Rio de Janeiro

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Demographics of Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro population pyramid.svg
Population pyramid of Rio de Janeiro (state) in 2022
Population6,775,561 (2021)
Rio de Janeiro Compared
IBGERio areaRio StateBrazil
Total population6,093,47216,010,429191,241,714
Population density12,382.7/sq mi922/sq mi57/sq mi
Median per capita income (2006)R$20,851R$17,695R$10,465

The demographics of Rio de Janeiro City are evidence of a uniquely large and ethnically diverse metropolis. It is the second largest city in Brazil with a population defined by a long history of international immigration.

Rio de Janeiro City is home to more than 6 million people, accounting for about 35% of the population of Rio de Janeiro State. Portuguese remains the most widely spoken language and Rio de Janeiro is the second largest 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.

People of Portuguese ancestry predominate in most of the state. The Brazilian census of 1920 showed that 39.74% of the Portuguese who lived in Brazil lived in Rio de Janeiro. Including all of the Rio de Janeiro, the proportion raised to 46.30% of the Portuguese who lived in Brazil. The numerical presence of the Portuguese was extremely high, accounting for 72% of the foreigners who lived in the capital. Portuguese born people accounted for 20.36% of the population of Rio, and those with a Portuguese father or a Portuguese mother accounted for 30.84%. In other words, native born Portuguese and their children accounted for 51.20% of the inhabitants of Rio, or a total of 267,664 people in 1890. [1]

Genomic ancestry of non-related individuals in Rio de Janeiro [2]
ColourNumber of individualsAmerindianAfricanEuropean
White1076.7%6.9%86.4%
Pardo1198.3%23.6%68.1%
Black1097.3%50.9%41.8%

Rio's inhabitants (called Cariocas, 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. 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. [3] [4]

Total genetic composition of Rio de Janeiro (2013 study) [5]
AncestryAmerindianAfricanEuropean
People of Rio de Janeiro13.70%31.10%55.20%
Genetic composition of Rio de Janeiro (2011 study) [6]
AncestryAmerindianAfricanEuropean
Rio de Janeiro7.4%18.9%73.70%

Due to significant levels of racial discrimination in Brazilian society, particularly in education, employment and housing, many Brazilians of colour consider it more advantageous to identify themselves as pardos and therefore do so. About one-third of Rio's pardos are clearly mulattoes (mulatos; people of mixed African and European 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 live predominantly in the affluent neighbourhoods of Flamengo, Copacabana, Ipanema-Leblon, Jardim Botânico, and Gávea in the South Zone; in Tijuca in the North Zone; and stretching from Barra da Tijuca 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 of their inhabitants, closely reflected in the urban infrastructure and public services that are locally available. While the ring of neighbourhoods 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 area.

View of Rio de Janeiro from the church of the monastery of Sao Bento c. 1820 Rugendas - Vue prise devant l'eglise de San-Bento.jpg
View of Rio de Janeiro from the church of the monastery of São Bento c. 1820

Historically, Rio's population grew primarily as a result of domestic migration, 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 Brazilian migrants, most of them born in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Espírito Santo. The largest groups of foreign born immigrants in the Greater Rio area included those from Portugal, Italy, and Spain.

The 1950s were Rio's decade of greatest proportional growth, with the city expanding by nearly 40 percent and the suburbs almost doubling. However, with the transfer of the national capital to Brasília in 1960, the rhythm of population growth in the city declined. Most internal migrants were directed to other municipalities of the metropolitan region, 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 service jobs continued to constitute a significant element of Rio's population.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rio de Janeiro</span> Second-most populous city in Brazil

Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, and the second most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a beta global city, Rio de Janeiro is the sixth most populous city in the Americas. Part of the city has been designated as a World Heritage Site, named "Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea", on 1 July 2012 as a Cultural Landscape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rio de Janeiro (state)</span> State of Brazil

Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil. It has the second largest economy of Brazil, with the largest being that of the state of São Paulo. The state, which has 8.2% of the Brazilian population, is responsible for 9.2% of the Brazilian GDP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Favela</span> Shanty town or slum in Brazil

Favela is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term, which means slum or ghetto, was first used in the Slum of Providência in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had lived under the favela trees in Bahia and had nowhere to live following the Canudos War. Some of the first settlements were called bairros africanos. Over the years, many former enslaved Africans moved in. Even before the first favela came into being, poor citizens were pushed away from the city and forced to live in the far suburbs.

In Brazil, Pardo is an ethnic and skin color category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in the Brazilian censuses. The term "pardo" is a complex one, more commonly used to refer to Brazilians of mixed ethnic ancestries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afro-Brazilians</span> Brazilians with sub-Saharan African ancestry

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barra da Tijuca</span> District in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Barra da Tijuca is an upper-class neighborhood or bairro in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, located in the western portion of the city on the Atlantic Ocean. Barra is well known for its beaches, its many lakes and rivers, and its lifestyle. This neighbourhood represents 4.7% of the city population and 13% of the total area of Rio de Janeiro.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Race and ethnicity in Brazil</span> Overview of race and ethnicity in Brazil

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of Brazil</span>

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Engenho Novo is a neighborhood of middle class and lower middle of the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In Brazil, a sarará is a multiracial person, being a particular kind of mulato or juçara, with perceivable Black African facial features, light complexion and fair but curly hair, called cabelo crespo, or fair but Afro-like frizzly hair, called carapinha, cabelo encarapinhado or cabelo pixaim. In the 1998 IBGE PME, 0.04% of respondents identified, in an inquiry on race/colour, as "sarará".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of the Southern Cone</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic groups in Latin America</span> Overview of ethnic groups in Latin America

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geography of Rio de Janeiro</span> Environment, climate and subdivisions of Rio de Janeiro

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References

  1. Lessa, C.; Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (2002). Os lusíadas na aventura do Rio moderno. Editora Record. p. 107. ISBN   9788501063564 . Retrieved 2015-01-05.
  2. Sergio Danilo Pena (17 November 2009). "Do pensamento racial ao pensamento racional" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-05-22. Retrieved 2015-01-05.
  3. "Negros e pardos do Rio têm mais genes europeus do que imaginam, segundo estudo". meionews.com.br. Archived from the original on 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2015-01-05.
  4. (PDF) http://www4.ensp.fiocruz.br/informe/anexos/ric.pdf . Retrieved 2011-08-23.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)[ dead link ]
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  6. Pena, S. D.; Di Pietro, G.; Fuchshuber-Moraes, M.; Genro, J. P.; Hutz, M. H.; Kehdy Fde, S.; Kohlrausch, F.; Magno, L. A.; Montenegro, R. C.; Moraes, M. O.; De Moraes, M. E.; De Moraes, M. R.; Ojopi, E. B.; Perini, J. A.; Racciopi, C.; Ribeiro-Dos-Santos, A. K.; Rios-Santos, F.; Romano-Silva, M. A.; Sortica, V. A.; Suarez-Kurtz, G. (2011). "PLOS ONE: The Genomic Ancestry of Individuals from Different Geographical Regions of Brazil Is More Uniform Than Expected". PLOS ONE. plosone.org. 6 (2): e17063. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017063 . PMC   3040205 . PMID   21359226.