As in the world, the Brazilian population is also irregularly distributed throughout the territory, safeguarding the natural, historical and economic peculiarities that each region has.
The largest demographic densities in Brazil are located on the coastal façade , mainly in the Northeast, Southeast and South regions. The fact can be explained mainly by historical, economic and political reasons.
Distribution by regions
According to Petwithsupplies, the Northeast Region was the one that first received the impact of the settlement from the European colonizer. The latter sought to combine strategic factors, such as the geographical proximity to the metropolis and the more accessible topography of that region, especially the coastal façade, with the economic interests of the time , that is, the sugar industry.
With the competitiveness of Antillean sugar and the stimulating mining period that settled in Minas Gerais, the axis of interest moved to the Southeast . This caused not only important areas of settlement in this region, but also encouraged settlement in other, more peripheral places, due to the need for food production to supply the gold zone .
Later, with the coffee industry, economic interest was decisively established in the Southeast, creating a strong infrastructure for future industrial development.
Finally, the region, with capital accumulation and population demand, has become the country’s development pole.
The Southern Region , of the three, was the one that received the most recent settlement. Even in the colonial period, the frontier areas of southern Brazil were the scene of a confrontation between Spanish and Portuguese, making the dominance of certain portions of the territory indefinite.
It was in Brazil Empire that the population of the region was encouraged, through immigration policy. Such a strategy, in addition to defining land tenure, made it productive, because despite the great difficulties faced by European immigrants, they were primarily responsible for the development of the region, through pastoral activities and, later, industry.
The immigrant’s technical knowledge, combined with the family’s artisanal production system, transformed small agropastoral units into veritable embryos of vertical industrialization, taking advantage of the local productive nucleus to transform it into very representative industries today.
Typical examples are slaughterhouses in the region, wineries, metallurgy and furniture and footwear industries, mostly linked to the presence of German, Italian and Slavic immigrants.
The Midwest and North regions have the largest demographic gaps. Distant from the axes of economic interest, in a country of continental extension, with an export policy for raw materials and a transport structure geared to the road sector, therefore expensive, the lesser population of them can be explained.
If the natural conditions of the Amazon were mistakenly considered as barriers to settlement, today, the environmental movement is mobilizing itself to not allow what happened to the Atlantic Forest to happen in the domain of the Amazon Forest, that is, its extermination.
Sustainable development is idealized for the region, which scientifically would be capable of providing economic support to local populations, without causing damage to the natural sources that provide them. The greatest economic interest in the region lies in extractive and agropastoral activities.
Already the Midwest , so the proximity to the Southeast as the tabular topography of much of its fields has attracted investment to the agro – pastoral activities, especially for mechanized agriculture. This situation has put an important Brazilian ecosystem at risk: the cerrado . However, it has generated foreign exchange for the country, in an impasse that has historically been repeated.
Distribution by states
Even within the most populous regions, some states have a larger population than others. This is the case, for example, in the states of the Southeast Region. São Paulo has more than 40 million inhabitants, Minas Gerais has 20 million, Rio de Janeiro has 16 million and Espírito Santo is home to 3.8 million inhabitants.
Population densities
In order to better explore the relationship between the territorial area and the population value, the absolute population will often not be a good reference, making it necessary to resort to population density values.
The highest values of Brazilian population density are concentrated in the coastal areas of the country.
Conclusion
What we see, therefore, is a Brazil with a visible contrast, the result of the historical dimensions of its settlement.
On the coastal façade we have human densities that are of concern, mainly due to the problems of various orders arising from them. In the central region, a great emptiness, with serious challenges for the future, especially if its settlement occurs in a disorganized manner, due to the fact that it is two of the most representative terrestrial ecosystems: Amazonian Forest and cerrado.
