Brazil's Regional Diversity

Brazil, the largest country in Latin America both by area (roughly 8.5 million square kilometers, the fifth-largest in the world) and by population (over 210 million as of the 2022 census conducted by IBGE, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), is formally divided by IBGE into five macro-regions: North (Norte), Northeast (Nordeste), Central-West (Centro-Oeste), Southeast (Sudeste), and South (Sul). The North, encompassing most of the Amazon Basin within Brazilian territory, is the largest region by area but among the least densely populated, while the Southeast — comprising the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Espírito Santo — contains roughly 40 percent of Brazil's population and generates a comparable share of its GDP, anchored by São Paulo, Latin America's most populous city with a metropolitan population exceeding 22 million.