Brazil's Indigenous Population Is Double the Size Earlier Thought

2022 census data in Brazil has found that twice the number of indigenous people are living in the country than had previously been thought. Where 896,917 people were counted in the 2010 census, now 1,693,535 are on record. According to a report by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), this leap may be a result of changes in methodology when collecting data. But as Constance Malleret reports for The Guardian, it may well also be a reflection of the growing number of Brazilians who are reclaiming their Indigenous identity.

As the following chart shows, the North and Northeast of Brazil account for three quarters (75.71 percent) of the country’s total indigenous population. The northern states of Amazonas and Bahia are the places with the biggest indigenous populations of 490,900 people and 229,100 people, respectively. The other states in the top five are Mato Grosso do Sul (116,300), Pernambuco (106,600) and Roraima (97,300).

In comparison to 2010, the number of indigenous people more than doubled in the federation units of Rio Grande do Norte (rising from 2,597 in 2010 to 11,725 in 2022), Bahia (60,120 to 229,103), Ceará (20,697 to 56,353), Amazonas (183,514 to 490,854), Piauí (from 2,944 to 7,198) and Goiás (from 8,583 to 19,522).

In 2010, indigenous persons accounted for 0.47 percent of the country’s total population. With the new data’s findings, this figure is now calculated to represent 0.83 percent.