BRASILIA, Aug 30 (NNN-AGENCIA BRASIL) — Brazil’s Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) released a study this week showing that as of July 1, 2025, the population of South America’s largest country amounted to 213.4 million inhabitants, representing a 0.39% increase over the previous year.
The population estimate published in the Federal Official Gazette is a requirement of the Federal Court of Accounts and serves as the basis for calculating the State and Municipal Participation Fund, transfers of funds from the federal government to state and local governments.
To arrive at the population estimate, the IBGE uses the latest census (2022) and makes annual projections based on data such as mortality and birth rates. The data are also fundamental for economic and sociodemographic indicators in the periods between censuses.
In the publication, the IBGE indicates the population of all states, the Federal District, metropolitan areas, and municipalities. A new feature for 2025 is the inclusion of Boa Esperança do Norte, with 5,877 inhabitants in Mato Grosso, the newest municipality in the country, which currently has 5,571 cities.
According to Marcio Minamiguchi, manager of Studies and Analysis of Demographic Dynamics at IBGE, Brazil is experiencing a trend of increasingly slower growth.
“The results show a slowdown, which was already indicated by the 2022 Census and Population Projections,” he said.
The IBGE predicted that the Brazilian population would continue to grow until 2041, reaching 220.43 million inhabitants, and then begin to shrink from 2042 onwards. By 2070, the country is expected to have 199.2 million people.
São Paulo is the most populous State in the country, with 46 million inhabitants, representing 21.6% of the population. In other words, one in five Brazilians lives in São Paulo. On the other hand, Roraima, with 738,772 inhabitants, is the least populous state.
The city of São Paulo is the most populated in the country, with 11.9 million inhabitants, which places it above 23 Brazilian full states, and only trailing São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and Bahia.
Palmas, in Tocantins, has the smallest population, with 328,500 people, for a State capital, while Serra da Saudade, in Minas Gerais, only has 856 residents. Brazil has 26 cities with fewer than 1,500 inhabitants. Four have fewer than 1,000 residents:
Altogether, the country has 15 cities with more than 1 million inhabitants, representing 20.1% of the Brazilian population, or one in five inhabitants. Of those cities, only Guarulhos and Campinas, in São Paulo, are not State capitals.
“The larger capitals, these more central municipalities, generally have a more conurbated environment and lose population to it. Growth moves from the center to the periphery. Among the capitals that lost population, with the exception of Salvador, there was an increase in inhabitants in the respective metropolitan region,” Minamiguchi pointed out.
According to the IBGE, Brazil has 30 metropolitan regions, which are home to 103.5 million people, or 48.5% of the population. The largest are São Paulo (21.6 million inhabitants), Rio de Janeiro (12.9 million), and Belo Horizonte (6 million). — NNN-AGENCIA BRASIL
