Portal:Brazil/Selected article/11

This is a list of the largest cities in Brazil. Brazil has a relatively high reported level of urbanization, with 8 out of every 10 Brazilians living in cities. The criteria used by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) in determining whether households are urban or rural, however, is based on political divisions, not on the built environment. A town is any seat of a district (the lowest political division); a city is the seat of a municipality. By such criteria, Brazil has over 5,000 cities and 12,000 towns. It is estimated that, if a more traditional criteria (size of human agglomeration, cultural and economic institutions, regional centrality, paving and street lighting) were used, perhaps 65% of Brazil's population would be urban, rather than 80%.

Cities in Brazil, except for the state of São Paulo, are usually not arranged in a network, but rather on various "export paths" to seaside ports. Some geographers have called this an "archipelago", and the most important cities are on the coast or close to it. State capitals are also each the largest city in its state, the exceptions being Vitória in Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina; there are also non-capital metropolitan areas in São Paulo (Campinas, Santos, Paraíba Valley), Minas Gerais (Vale do Aço), Rio Grande do Sul (Sinos Valley), and Santa Catarina (Itajaí Valley). Most of the non-capital large cities in Brazil are in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Paraná.