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.

In 2025, approximately 23 million people lived in the São Paulo metropolitan area, making it the biggest in Latin America and the Caribbean and the sixth most populated in the world. The homonymous state of São Paulo was also the most populous federal entity in the country. The second place for the region was Mexico City with 22.75 million inhabitants. Brazil's cities Brazil is home to two large metropolises, only counting the population within the city limits, São Paulo had approximately 11.45 million inhabitants, and Rio de Janeiro around 6.21 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. Mexico City Mexico City's metropolitan area ranks sevenths in the ranking of most populated cities in the world. Founded over the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in 1521 after the Spanish conquest as the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the city still stands as one of the most important in Latin America. Nevertheless, the preeminent economic, political, and cultural position of Mexico City has not prevented the metropolis from suffering the problems affecting the rest of the country, namely, inequality and violence. Only in 2023, the city registered a crime incidence of 52,723 reported cases for every 100,000 inhabitants and around 24 percent of the population lived under the poverty line.

Brazil BR: Population in Largest City data was reported at 22,806,704.000 Person in 2024. This records an increase from the previous number of 22,619,736.000 Person for 2023. Brazil BR: Population in Largest City data is updated yearly, averaging 15,288,036.000 Person from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2024, with 65 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 22,806,704.000 Person in 2024 and a record low of 4,493,182.000 Person in 1960. Brazil BR: Population in Largest City data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Brazil – Table BR.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in largest city is the urban population living in the country's largest metropolitan area.;United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.;;

Population in largest city in Brazil was reported at 22806704 in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Brazil - Population in largest city - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on November of 2025.

Context

The dataset extracted from the website of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) contains all demographic, economic, geographic and human development information on Brazilian cities.

Content

There was no complete dataset to download all this information. So, I did a webscrapping that entered all the pages of each Brazilian cities and got all the information available. After that, I consolidated everything into a single file and now share with you to serve as research and studies of Brazil's performance on development, economics, and other topics.

This file contains 14 columns and 5571 rows (with headers):

• IBGECode - ID of the cities
• LocalCidade - Name of the cities
• LocalUF - State initials of the cities
• LocalEstado - Full name of city states
• RegiaoBrasil - IBGE's Region for each city
• Latitude - city ​​latitude
• Longitude - city ​​longitude
• Gentilico - name given to people born in the city
• PopEstimada_2018 - Population estimated in 2018
• PopCenso 2010 - Population in 2010
• IDHM - HDI of each city
• ReceitasRealizadas_2014 - Revenues realized by cities
• DespesasEmpenhadas_2014 - Expenditure incurred by cities
• Pib_2014 - GDP by cities

Acknowledgements

I thank my co-workers who helped me develop web scrapping and distribute the consolidated information to all of you.

Inspiration

Questions to be answered about this dataset:

1. What is the forecast of the GDP of each city in Brazil?
2. Can we group the cities by some specific division related to HDI or GDP?
3. What will be the total population of the Brazilian in the South of the Country in 2020?

And so on.

Actual value and historical data chart for Brazil Population In The Largest City Percent Of Urban Population

Brazil BR: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data was reported at 12.223 % in 2024. This records an increase from the previous number of 12.203 % for 2023. Brazil BR: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data is updated yearly, averaging 12.971 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2024, with 65 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 15.235 % in 1980 and a record low of 11.954 % in 2005. Brazil BR: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Brazil – Table BR.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in largest city is the percentage of a country's urban population living in that country's largest metropolitan area.;United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.;Weighted average;

This horizontal bar chart displays population (people) by capital city using the aggregation sum in Brazil. The data is filtered where the date is 2021. The data is about countries per year.

View yearly updates and historical trends for Brazil Population in the Largest City. Source: World Bank. Track economic data with YCharts analytics.

The below dataset shows the top 800 biggest cities in the world and their populations in the year 2024. It also tells us which country and continent each city is in, and their rank based on population size. Here are the top ten cities:

• Tokyo, Japan - in Asia, with 37,115,035 people.
• Delhi, India - in Asia, with 33,807,403 people.
• Shanghai, China - in Asia, with 29,867,918 people.
• Dhaka, Bangladesh - in Asia, with 23,935,652 people.
• Sao Paulo, Brazil - in South America, with 22,806,704 people.
• Cairo, Egypt - in Africa, with 22,623,874 people.
• Mexico City, Mexico - in North America, with 22,505,315 people.
• Beijing, China - in Asia, with 22,189,082 people.
• Mumbai, India - in Asia, with 21,673,149 people.
• Osaka, Japan - in Asia, with 18,967,459 people.

Context

This dataset has information about brazilian cities.

Content

• city: the name of the city
• lat: the latitude of each city
• lng: the longitude of each city
• country: the country of each city (all Brazil in this case)
• iso2: country code (BR)
• admin: state of each city
• capital: wheter the city is a capital or not
• population: amount of inhabitants of each city
• population_proper: area contained within city limits

This bar chart displays male population (people) by capital city using the aggregation sum in Brazil. The data is filtered where the date is 2021. The data is about countries per year.

Dataset Overview

This dataset provides a comprehensive overview of Brazil’s 2022 Census data, focusing on São Paulo’s neighbourhoods. The data combines demographic and socioeconomic information with geospatial shapefiles of São Paulo’s neighbourhoods, enabling users to perform statistical and spatial analyses.

Users can explore patterns, trends, and transformations in São Paulo’s urban landscape by linking census sectors to neighbourhood boundaries.

Key Components

Census 2022 Data

• Source: Brazil's 2022 Census (IBGE)
• Content: Demographic data including age, gender, income, education levels, household size, and population density across census sectors.
• Format: CSV

São Paulo Neighborhood Shapefile

• Source: GIS-based shapefiles for São Paulo neighbourhoods (IBGE Census Sectors and Manually created Neighbourhoods)
• Content: Spatial geometry for São Paulo's neighbourhoods with census sector identifiers.
• Format: Parquet

Use Cases

• Neighborhood Demographics Analysis: Combine census data with shapefiles to generate neighborhood-level demographic reports.
• Urban Development Studies: Study how São Paulo neighbourhoods have grown using historical context and 2022 Census data.
• Spatial Data Visualizations: Create maps showing income distribution, population density, or other demographic factors across neighbourhoods.
• Policy Planning & Research: Support urban planning, resource allocation, and policy development in São Paulo.

Potential Applications

• Analyze the relationship between neighbourhood demographics and urban growth patterns.
• Visualize inequalities in population distribution, income, or education levels.
• Identify trends in housing and population density for urban studies.
• Provide insights into São Paulo’s historical and ongoing transformations.

Why Use This Dataset?

• Comprehensive Coverage: Detailed census data and spatial boundaries allow in-depth analyses.
• Flexible Integration: Easily combine demographic data with shapefiles to enable advanced spatial analyses.

Dataset Details

• File Formats: CSV (Census Data), GeoJSON/Shapefile (Neighborhood Shapefiles)
• Spatial Resolution: Census sector linked to São Paulo’s neighbourhood boundaries

Geographic Scope: São Paulo, Brazil

This dataset is ideal for data scientists, urban planners, and researchers seeking to uncover the dynamics of São Paulo’s neighbourhoods through an intersection of demographic and spatial data.

Contribute to new insights and empower decision-making in understanding Brazil’s largest city!

The share of urban population in Brazil amounted to 87.79 percent in 2023. In a steady upward trend, the share rose by 41.65 percentage points from 1960.

Abstract This paper compares the occupational structure of cities in Brazil and United States aiming to evaluate the extent to which the economic structure of these urban agglomerations is associated with the different stages of development, specifically when comparing a rich country with a developing one. Using a harmonized occupational database and microdata from the Brazilian 2010 Demographic Census and the U.S. American Community Survey (2008-2012), results show that Brazilian cities have a stronger connection between population size, both with occupational structure and human capital distribution, than the one found for cities in the United States. These findings suggest a stronger primacy of large cities in Brazil’s urban network and a more unequal distribution of economic activity across cities when compared to USA, indicating a strong correlation between development and occupational structure.

This dataset collects information on municipal expenditures, water-sewerage-and trash collection service coverage, and basic socioeconomic characteristics at municipal level, for two census waves (2000; 2010) for all municipalities of Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.

Abstract: Income variables from the Brazilian population census (IBGE) are often used as proxies for the population’s socioeconomic level in spatial analyses of urban segregation, inequality and social exclusion. However, income variables are dependent on reference values (minimum wage) that change over time, which can be challenging for multitemporal analysis. This paper discusses this issue and proposes a methodology to adjust income data that allows a meaningful comparison between the datasets of two Census periods. The methodology was applied to five medium-sized cities of the state of São Paulo by adjusting income data from Census 2000 and 2010 according to the period’s inflation rates. The analysis shows that the methodology mitigates the comparability issues. Results better reflect the changes in population composition and in residential patterns of different income groups that took place over the 2000s in Brazil in medium-sized cities.

Mapped São Paulo into an easily readable JSON file, since I couldn't find any on the internet. Feel free to use it for whichever projects you may have ;)

Mapeei São Paulo num arquivo JSON, já que não achei nada do tipo na internet. Sinta-se livre pra usar em quaisquer projetos que tiver ;)

According to an online survey as of June 2024, the majority of vegetarians registered in the state of São Paulo lived in its homonymous capital, the city of São Paulo, where more than four thousand people identified themselves as vegetarian, vegan or supporter thereof. The second largest population was found in Campinas, with 545 respondents.

Project Atlas - São Paulo

Project Atlas - São Paulo is a Data Science and Engineering initiative that aims at developing relevant and curated Geospatial features about the city of São Paulo, Brazil. It's ultimate use is varied, but it is mainly focused on Machine Learning tasks, such as Real State price prediction.

It aggregates several attributes from many public data sources at different levels of interest, which can be used to match geospatially referenced data (lat,long pairs for example).

A breakdown of the data sources currently used and their original references can be found below, but the official documentation of the project contains the full list of data sources.

Data sources

• GeoSampa: geospatial data exploration tool provided by the São Paulo's Department of Urban Development;
• IBGE: raw datasets from the 2010 Census conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics;
• Infocidade: multiple sources from the city of São Paulo's local government entities;
• São Paulo Open Data Portal: multiple curated data sources from the city of São Paulo;

Relevant files:

1. tb_district.parquet: the dataset with all derived features aggregated at the District level;
2. tb_neighborhood.parquet: the dataset with all derived features aggregated at the Neighborhood level;
3. tb_zipcode.parquet: the dataset with all derived features aggregated at the Zipcode level;
4. tb_area_of_ponderation: the dataset with all derived features aggregated at the Area of Ponderation level;

Inspiration

This project had various inspirations, such as the Boston Housing Dataset. While I was studying relevant features for the real state market, I noticed that the classic Boston Housing dataset included several sociodemographic variables, which gave me the idea to do the same for São Paulo using the Brazilian Census data.

Acknowledgements

Photo by Lucas Marcomini on Unsplash