White Brazilians
White Brazilians (Portuguese: brasileiros brancos [bɾaziˈle(j)ɾuz ˈbɾɐ̃kus]) refers to Brazilian citizens who are considered or self-identify as "white", typically because of European or West Asian ancestry from Lebanon and Syria.
Brasileiros brancos | |
|---|---|
White Brazilians (alone/one race only) in 2022 | |
| Total population | |
| 88,252,121 43.46% of the Brazilian population (2022) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Entire country; highest percentages found in the South Region and Southeast Region | |
| São Paulo | 25,661,895 |
| Rio Grande do Sul | 9,251,000 |
| Minas Gerais | 8,937,000 |
| Rio de Janeiro | 7,828,000 |
| Paraná | 7,591,000 |
| Santa Catarina | 5,971,000 |
| Languages | |
| Mostly Portuguese | |
| Religion | |
| Majority: Catholic Church 66.4% Minority: Protestantism 20.8%, Irreligion 6.7%, Spiritism 2.9%, Other (Jehovah's Witnesses, Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Umbanda) 3.0% | |
The main ancestry of current white Brazilians is Portuguese. Historically, the Portuguese were the Europeans who mostly immigrated to Brazil: it is estimated that, between 1500 and 1808, 500,000 of them went to live in Brazil, and the Portuguese were practically the only European group to have definitively settled in colonial Brazil.
Furthermore, even after independence, the Portuguese were among the nationalities that mostly immigrated to Brazil. Between 1884 and 1959, 4,734,494 immigrants entered Brazil, mostly from Portugal and Italy, but also from Spain, Germany, Poland and other countries and nowadays millions of Brazilians are also descended from these immigrants.
The white Brazilian population is spread throughout Brazil's territory, but its highest percentage is found in the three southernmost states, where 72.6% of the population claims to be White in the censuses, whereas the Southeast region has the largest absolute numbers.
According to the 2022 Census, the states with the highest percentage of white citizens are: Santa Catarina (83.85%), Rio Grande do Sul (78.4%), Paraná (64.6%), and São Paulo (57.8%). Other states with significant rates are: Rio de Janeiro (42%), Mato Grosso do Sul (42.4%) and Espírito Santo (42.06%). São Paulo has the largest population in absolute numbers with 25 million whites.