Brazil has 16.39 million people living in slums and urban communities. This represents 8.1% of the total 203 million inhabitants in the country, meaning that out of every 100 people, eight live in these areas. The data is part of a supplement to the 2022 Census, released on Friday (8) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The survey indicated that there are 12,348 slums in 656 municipalities across Brazil.
The researchers at IBGE consider slums and urban communities to be locations with characteristics such as legal insecurity of possession, absence or precarious or incomplete provision of public services, urban standards outside the current order, and occupation of areas with restrictions or environmental risk.
Distribution
IBGE detailed that 43.4% of slum residents are in the Southeast region. There are 7.1 million. In the Northeast, there are 28.3% (4.6 million); in the North, 20% (3.3 million); in the South, 5.9% (968 thousand); and in the Central-West, 2.4% (392 thousand).
The state of São Paulo has the largest population of residents in slums, 3.6 million, followed by Rio de Janeiro (2.1 million) and Pará (1.5 million). Together, these three states account for 44.7% of the total inhabitants of communities in the country. The largest slum is Rocinha, in Rio de Janeiro, with 72,021 residents.
In proportion, Amazonas has the largest share of people living in slums (34.7%). This means that practically one in every three residents of the state lives in some community.
Has the number of people living in slums increased?
Yes. In 2010, IBGE identified 11.4 million people in 6,329 slums or communities, which represented 6% of the population.
However, researchers warn that caution is needed when comparing 2010 and 2022, as technological and methodological improvements in the identification of territorial cuts occurred during this time frame.
Source: Agência Brasil