Brazil hits lowest population growth since 1872

New government statistics published on Wednesday show that Brazil’s annual population growth has slowed down over the past decade to historically low rates. 

Brazil, the largest nation in Latin America, had 203,062,512 inhabitants by August 2022, according to the 2022 census conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IGBE). 

While the number of inhabitants in 2022 is 6.5% higher than the last census in 2010 when the country had 190.8 million inhabitants, it is well below the statistics projected in 2021 and represents a slower growth rate than before. 

The population growth between 2010 and 2022 was only 0.52%, the lowest ever recorded since the figure began being reported in 1872, the IGBE added. 

"In 2022, the annual growth rate has been reduced to less than half of what it was in 2010 (1.17%)," census technical coordinator Luciano Duarte said in a statement.

The population of one of the world’s most populous countries has been declining since the 1960s when the growth rate reached 2.99%. Experts believe that the decline in the rate of growth of the population is due to the fact that people in the South American country are having fewer children. 

Brazil usually releases a new census every 10 years. However, the census scheduled for 2020 was delayed to 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

According to the IBGE, the data “presents a set of basic information on the total population of the country's households at different geographic levels and different cuts, as well as various indicators derived from this information, such as the average number of residents per household, population density and the annual population growth rate."

The census showed that Brazil's most populated region continued to be the southeast, which houses about 41.8% of the nation’s entire population—about 84.4 million. Several of the country’s largest cities are located in this region, including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.