Brazilians (Brasileiros) v . d . e
Daiane dos Santos · Kayapo · G. Bündchen · Pelé Ronaldo · Marina Silva · Emperor Dom Pedro II · Carmen Miranda
Total population
c. 192 million (2005)
Regions with significant populations
Brazil        190 million[7]
United States ~ 800.000[8]  Paraguay ~ 455.000[9]  Japan ~ 225.000[10]  Portugal ~ 100.000[11]  Italy ~ 67.000[12]  Germany ~ 60.000[13]  Spain ~ 50.000[14]  Switzerland ~ 40.000[15]  United Kingdom ~ 30.000  Canada ~ 30.000
Languages
Portuguese
Religions
Predominantly Roman Catholic; Protestantism
Related ethnic groups
. Europeans . Africans . Amerindians . Japanese

Brazilians (Brasileiros in Portuguese) are people inhabiting or originating from Brazil. The vast majority of Brazilians live in Brazil, although there are significant Brazilian communities in Paraguay, the United States, Japan, and Europe.

Ethnic origin

Brazilians are mostly descendants of Brazil's indigenous peoples, colonial Portuguese settlers, African slaves, along with several groups of immigrants who arrived in Brazil mostly from the 1820s until the 1970s. Most of the immigrants were Italians and Portuguese, but also significant numbers of Germans, Spaniards, Japanese, and Lebanese.^[2]

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) classify the Brazilian population among five categories: white, black, pardo (brown), yellow (Asian) or Indigenous, based on skin color or race. The last PNAD (National Research for Sample of Domiciles) census found Brazil to be made up of 93,000,000 Whites, 80,000,000 brown people, 11.7 million Blacks, and 1.3 million Asian or Amerindian.

Compared to other census realized in the last two decades, for the first time the number of White Brazilians did not exceed 50% of the population. In 2000, Whites were 53.7% in the census. In comparison, the number of brown people went up of 38.5% for 43.2% and the Black one from 6.2% to 6.3%.^[3] According to the IBGE, this trend is mainly because of the revaluation of the identity of historically discriminated ethnic groups. ^[1] The ethnic composition of Brazilians is not uniform across the country. Due to its large influx of European immigrants in the 19th century, the Southern Region has a large White majority, composing 80.8% of its population^[4]. The Northeastern Region, as a result of the large numbers of African slaves working in the sugar cane engenhos, has a majority of brown and black peoples composing, respectively, 63.1% and 7%^[5]. Northern Brazil, largely covered by the Amazon Rainforest, is 71.5% brown, due to its strong Amerindian component^[6]. Southeast and Central-Western Brazil have a more balanced ratio among different ethnic groups.

According to the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, racism is an unbailable crime and must be met with imprisonment. This is taken very seriously.

External links

• (Portuguese) Lusotopia

Footnotes

See also

v . d . e Major topics in Brazil
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Other	Military. International rankings. Science and Technology. Social apartheid
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