Brazil has a high level of urbanization with 87.8%[1] of the population residing in urban and metropolitan areas. The criteria used by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics)[2] in determining whether households are urban or rural, however, are based on political divisions, not on the developed environment.
Nowadays, the country has 5,570 cities, with 5,568 municipalities plus the capital (Brasília) and the Island of Fernando de Noronha.[3]
With two exceptions, the state capitals are all the largest cities in their respective states: Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina is its second-largest city after Joinville, while Vitória is only the fourth-largest city in Espírito Santo, although it is located in that state's largest metropolitan area.
This is a list of the most populous cities based on the population of the municipality where the city is located, rather than its metropolitan area. As IBGE considers the entire Federal District synonymous to Brasília, the population of the Federal District is shown for Brasília.
State capitals are in bold and states' largest cities are in italics.
Brazil's population, as recorded by the 2010 census, was of 190,755,799 inhabitants[6] (22.40 inhabitants per square kilometer), with 84.36% of the population defined as urban. The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeast (80.4 million) and Northeast (53.1 million).
| State | Number of cities over 100,000 inhabitants | |
|---|---|---|
| São Paulo | 78 | |
| Minas Gerais | 34 | |
| Rio de Janeiro | 28 | |
| Paraná | 22 | |
| Rio Grande do Sul | 19 | |
| Bahia | 18 | |
| Goiás, Pará | 15 | |
| Santa Catarina | 14 | |
| Pernambuco | 12 | |
| Maranhão | 10 | |
| Espírito Santo | 9 | |
| Ceará | 8 | |
| Mato Grosso | 6 | |
| Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe | 4 | |
| Amazonas, Mato Grosso do Sul | 3 | |
| Alagoas, Amapá, Piauí, Rondônia, Tocantins | 2 | |
| Acre, Distrito Federal, Roraima | 1 |
See main article: List of metropolitan areas in Brazil.