In 202, according to the estimation, the Brazilian state of São Paulo was home to nearly 46 million people, making it the most populous state in the South American country. With less than half of São Paulo's population, Minas Gerais was the second most populous state in Brazil at that time. These two states are located in the South-East region of the country. Along with Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo, these states constitute Brazil's most populated region.

In 2024, approximately 11.9 million people lived in São Paulo, making it the largest municipality in Brazil and one of the most populous cities in the world. The homonymous state of São Paulo was also the most populous federal entity in the country. Brazil's cities Brazil is home to two large metropolises: São Paulo with close to 11.9 million inhabitants, and Rio de Janeiro with around 6.7 million inhabitants. It also contains a number of smaller but well-known cities, such as Brasília, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, and many others, which report between 2 and 3 million inhabitants each. As a result, the country's population is primarily urban, with nearly 88 percent of inhabitants living in cities. While smaller than some of the other cities, Brasília was chosen to be the capital because of its relatively central location. The city is also well-known for its modernist architecture and utopian city plan, which is quite controversial - criticized by many and praised by others. Sports venues capitals A number of Brazil’s medium-sized and large cities were chosen as venues for the 2014 World Cup, and the 2015 Summer Olympics also took place in Rio de Janeiro. Both of these events required large sums of money to support infrastructure and enhance mobility within a number of different cities across the country. Billions of dollars were spent on the 2014 World Cup, which went primarily to stadium construction and renovation but also to a number of different mobility projects. Other short-term spending on infrastructure for the World Cup and the Rio Olympic Games was estimated at 50 billion U.S. dollars. While these events have poured a lot of money into urban infrastructure, a number of social and economic problems within the country remain unsolved.

The Legal Amazon, known as "Amazônia Legal" in Portuguese, is an area of more than five million square kilometers comprising the Brazilian states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, and Tocantins. This political and geographical region was created by Brazilian federal law dating back to 1953 in order to promote special protection and development policies for the Amazon area. The Brazilian state occupying the largest area of the Legal Amazon is Amazonas, amounting to almost 1.6 million square kilometers. It is followed by the state of Pará, with 1.25 million square kilometers.

In 2023, the state of Maranhão had the highest poverty rate in Brazil, with 51.6 percent of the population living in poverty. Santa Catarina, on the other hand, had the lowest poverty rate at 11.6 percent.

In 2023, Pernambuco reported the highest homicide rate in the country, at nearly ** occurrences per 100,000 inhabitants. Pernambuco, in the country's northeastern region, ranked second, with ** homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, in 2021, Bahia also ranked first in numbers of homicides, with around *** thousand occurrences reported.

In 2020, ** percent of the leading franchise brands in Brazil were located in the state of São Paulo. Rio de Janeiro and Paraná accounted for ** percent of the largest franchise brands in the country. That same year, food brands represented the largest number of franchises in Brazil.

In 2023, Mato Grosso was the Brazilian state with the largest planted area for agricultural production, amounting to more than 19 million hectares. This represented around one fifth of the planted area for agricultural production in Brazil. Paraná ranked second, with around 11.5 million hectares planted with permanent and temporary crops.

In 2022, Brazil's agricultural production value amounted to around 830 billion Brazilian reals, out of which more than 21 percent originated in the state of Mato Grosso. São Paulo was the second largest crop producing state that year, accounting for 12.4 percent of the country's production value.

According to a survey carried out in Brazil among customers of an online bank, São Paulo was the state with the largest share of food delivery users in 2020. São Paulo is by a wide margin the most populated Brazilian state, followed by Minas Gerais.

In 2024, government health spending in Brazil amounted to approximately 134.5 billion Brazilian reals. São Paulo was the Brazilian state with the highest government health expenditure that year, reaching almost 21 billion reals. Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro followed, with about 13 reals and 12 billion reals spent on health by the government, respectively. That same year, around 86 billion reals from the total government health expenditure were allocated to hospital and outpatient care in Brazil.

In 2023, the northwestern state of Rondônia had the highest femicide rate in Brazil. Almost three of every 100,000 women who lived in those territories were murdered on account of their gender during that year. The average femicide rate was estimated at 1.4 victims per 100,000 women in Brazil.

In 2023, it is estimated that about *********** Brazilians lived in the United States. Of these, ************** lived in the state of New York. The largest community resided in the state of Florida, with around ******* Brazilians divided between the consulate in Miami and the consulate in Orlando. Brazil-U.S. relations In 2024, Brazil and the United States celebrated 200 years of diplomatic relations. The countries cooperate in various sectors, but the economy stands out the most, as the United States was Brazil's second-largest trading partner in 2023. The trade between these countries amounted to over ** billion dollars in that year. This proximity between the countries is appreciated by Brazilian citizens, who mostly have a good image of the North American country. U.S. Brazilian imports The value of U.S. imports of Brazilian origin has grown in recent decades. After a decline in 2020, the value of imports increased by around ***** billion U.S. dollars and, in 2023, the United States imported approximately 39 billion U.S. dollars’ worth of Brazilian goods. This was the highest level of Brazilian imports since 1985. Furthermore, the imports of agricultural products from Brazil totaled nearly *** billion U.S. dollars in 2023.

Brazil and the United States are the two most populous countries in the Americas today. In 1500, the year that Pedro Álvares Cabral made landfall in present-day Brazil and claimed it for the Portuguese crown, it is estimated that there were roughly one million people living in the region. Some estimates for the present-day United States give a population of two million in the year 1500, although estimates vary greatly. By 1820, the population of the U.S. was still roughly double that of Brazil, but rapid growth in the 19th century would see it grow 4.5 times larger by 1890, before the difference shrunk during the 20th century. In 2024, the U.S. has a population over 340 million people, making it the third most populous country in the world, while Brazil has a population of almost 218 million and is the sixth most populous. Looking to the future, population growth is expected to be lower in Brazil than in the U.S. in the coming decades, as Brazil's fertility rates are already lower, and migration rates into the United States will be much higher. Historical development The indigenous peoples of present-day Brazil and the U.S. were highly susceptible to diseases brought from the Old World; combined with mass displacement and violence, their population growth rates were generally low, therefore migration from Europe and the import of enslaved Africans drove population growth in both regions. In absolute numbers, more Europeans migrated to North America than Brazil, whereas more slaves were transported to Brazil than the U.S., but European migration to Brazil increased significantly in the early 1900s. The U.S. also underwent its demographic transition much earlier than in Brazil, therefore its peak period of population growth was almost a century earlier than Brazil. Impact of ethnicity The demographics of these countries are often compared, not only because of their size, location, and historical development, but also due to the role played by ethnicity. In the mid-1800s, these countries had the largest slave societies in the world, but a major difference between the two was the attitude towards interracial procreation. In Brazil, relationships between people of different ethnic groups were more common and less stigmatized than in the U.S., where anti-miscegenation laws prohibited interracial relationships in many states until the 1960s. Racial classification was also more rigid in the U.S., and those of mixed ethnicity were usually classified by their non-white background. In contrast, as Brazil has a higher degree of mixing between those of ethnic African, American, and European heritage, classification is less obvious, and factors such as physical appearance or societal background were often used to determine racial standing. For most of the 20th century, Brazil's government promoted the idea that race was a non-issue and that Brazil was racially harmonious, but most now acknowledge that this actually ignored inequality and hindered progress. Racial inequality has been a prevalent problem in both countries since their founding, and today, whites generally fare better in terms of education, income, political representation, and even life expectancy. Despite this adversity, significant progress has been made in recent decades, as public awareness of inequality has increased, and authorities in both countries have made steps to tackle disparities in areas such as education, housing, and employment.

In 2022, Mato Grosso was the Brazilian state with the highest number of bovine livestock in the country, with around 34.3 million heads. The state of Pará ranked second, with 24.8 million heads. That year, ending stocks of bovines in Brazil added up to 234.4 million heads.

The statistic shows the largest countries in South America, based on land area. Brazil is the largest country by far, with a total area of over 8.5 million square kilometers, followed by Argentina, with almost 2.8 million square kilometers.

In 2022, the gross domestic product (GDP) of São Paulo amounted to 3.13 trillion Brazilian reals, which equated to over 31 percent of the national economic output. By contrast, ten federative units produced less than one percent of the Brazilian GDP each.

In 2021, grape production in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul amounted to 951.6 thousand metric tons. The southernmost Brazilian state accounted for over 56 percent of the national grape production that year. The state of Pernambuco ranked second, with an output of 390.6 thousand tons.

The Northeastern state of Pernambuco was the federative unit with the largest unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2025, with 12 percent. Bahia and Piauí followed with 10.9 and 10.2 percent. In total, four states had an unemployment rate above ten percent in the first quarter of 2025. Furthermore, the Northeast of Brazil was the region with the highest unemployment rate.

Brazil conducted its first nationwide census in 1872; this census gave total populations of 4.2 million free non-whites, 1.5 million slave non-whites, and 3.8 million whites. Indigenous people and those of mixed indigenous descent were largely excluded from the census, although an overall figure of 0.4 million was given for the entire country. These figures combined to give a total of 9.9 million (modern UN estimates put the total at 10.3 million in 1872; likely due to the census' exclusion of many non-white infants).

The state of Minas Gerais had the largest population, at over two million people, with the neighboring states of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro with the second and third largest populations respectively. East Brazil was the region with the largest population, followed by the northeast and then south. In terms of ethnicity, non-whites outnumbered white people in every region except for the south, and free people of color outnumbered slaves in every state except for Rio de Janeiro.

Pará Grosso was the Brazilian state with the highest allocated greenhouse gas emissions in 2023. That year, the central-western state generated around 312 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO₂e), representing about 14 percent of national emissions. Mato Grosso ranked second, with almost 300 MtCO₂e. Changes in land use and forests are the main source of GHG emissions in Brazil.