The people of Rio

The estimated population for the Rio de Janeiro IBGE was 6,161,047 inhabitants in the city and 11,812,482 in the metropolitan area (2008), making it the second largest city in Brazil, the third largest in America South, and 24th in the world.

The average annual rates of increase of population were 0.8% (2000-2006) and 0.75% (1991-2000) in the city, and 1.43% (2000-2006) and 1.18% (1991-2000) in the metropolitan area.  This indicates, in general, acceleration in the growth rate of other municipalities in the Rio Grande, and a small increase in the rate of capital.

Ethnic composition
In the metropolitan area, the last National Survey by Household Sample, conducted by IBGE, revealed the following proportions in the physical type of the population: whites, 53.6% (6,207,702), brown, 33.6% (3,891,395) , black, 12.3% (1,424,529), and yellow or indigenous, 0.5% (57,908).

Among the most significant migration flows  are those of Portuguese and other European nations, and African-Brazilians.

Portuguese Immigration in Brazil

Portuguese Immigration to Brazil flared up in the sixteenth century, and reached its peak at the beginning of the twentieth century, Portuguese being one of the largest bodies of immigrants already received by the country. However, it was only in 1808, with the establishment of the Portuguese Royal Family in Rio de Janeiro, and the relative proximity of coal deposits (discovered in the eighteenth century), that the city benefited from the wave of Portuguese. In that year, there were fifteen thousand in the Brazilian territory, with the vast majority of the noble people of the high-Portuguese society settling in the then capital of the colony.

The Royal Portuguese Reading Cabinet was founded in 1837 by a group of forty-three Portuguese immigrants, political refugees, to promote culture among the Portuguese community in the then capital of the Empire. It is the largest library of Portuguese authors outside India
After Independence, migration showed a gradual reduction, because of xenophobia against the Portuguese created at the time. But over the years because of the shortage of labor caused by the end of the slave trade, migration started to grow again. From 1850, Portuguese immigration has had an almost exclusively urban character and, unlike the Germans and Italians who came to work in agriculture, the Portuguese preferred two destinations: the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

Between 1881 and 1991, more than 1.5 million people migrated from Portugal to Brazil. In 1906, 133,393 Portuguese were living in Rio de Janeiro – 16% of the population of the season. Despite the migration rates having been reduced dramatically from the 1930s (and with emphasis, after 1960), even today, the city is considered the second most populace of Portuguese in the world, after Lisbon.

Migrants from other states of Brazil
We see a respectable number of people from other states, especially those from the Northeast. Peoples of Paraiba and Pernambuco are very present.  At the height of industrialization from the 1960s and 1980s, they began migrating to the Southeast in search of better living and working conditions. With the structural improvement in other regions of the country, and the problems resulting from overpopulation in large cities, migration from the Northeast declined considerably. Although Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo continue to be major centers of attraction, “aromatic” migration won more pronounced contours.

African-Brazilian
There are many African-Brazilians from the colonial period – most descended from slaves brought from Benin, Angola and Mozambique.  With important contributions from their musical and religious syncretism, remaining elements of African culture are now entangled to the Brazilian culture and the city.

Other immigrants
Germans, Italians, Russians, Swiss, Lebanese, Jewish, Spanish, French, Argentinean, Chinese and their descendants make up a considerable portion of foreign people living in the city. Between 1920 and 1935, supporting the city, dozens of thousands of Jewish immigrants came from Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine and Poland.