note on factors reponsible for the uneven distrubtion of population in brazil
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Population of Brazil is 157,872,000, which is quite high considering that only 10% live inland and over 90% live on a strip along the east coast which is roughly 500km wide and is about 25% of the of the countries total area. The density decreases quite rapidly towards the north-west, where several remote areas are almost entirely lacking in permanent settlement.
There’s an area in the dry north-eastern which they call the Sertao. Here it is also lacking settlement also lacking in settlements due to the following reasons; extremely high temperatures and poor soils make it unsuitable for growing conditions in the area, which is also not good to rear animals on. Sertao also lacks in clean water, electricity, healthcare, energy reserves, communications poor and education is also lacking. This place could be described as a typical LEDC because all of the above matches and it has; high birth rates, high infant mortality and short life expectancy, which makes the people not wanting to live there so the area becomes sparsely populated.
From the middle toward the western side of Brazil is the Amazonian basin, it is basically the Amazonian rainforest. Here the weather is wet, hot and very humid; the rivers here flood annually because of the high convectional rainfall. And there is a high incidence of disease i.e. bilharzias disease has popped up in the area in the last ten years. Some trees in the rainforest were cleared but caused damage to the soils which were leached out causing it to become infertile. This area has also suffered from lack of government funding and can only support the subsistence farmers. Overall here it is sparsely populated. Apart from one area in the Amazon named Manaus is moderately populated and has had two growth periods. It used to be the original Portuguese trading post. The first growth boom occurred in the 19th/20th century, this was because of the rubber boom. The second occurred in 1980’s; this was because of developing of the tourism trade and the port being granted a new status as a free port. This attracted people from all over the country. Something else that could have attracted people could be the recent extraction and exploitation of raw minerals such as iron ore, and bauxite.
Along that easterly strip is Plateau, here it is moderately populated, the climate is much healthier because it is considerably cooler than in the rainforest and along the coast. Here it is rich terra rossa which is a type of volcanic soil, this is ideal for growing coffee. Other vital minerals have also been found in the area. But communication is poor, rainfall is irregular so there are long droughts in the winter, and federal investment hasn’t been so good so this hasn’t stimulated the population to grow.
The highest population in Brazil is distributed in the eastern parts of plateau around Sao Paulo and on the outer skirts of the coast. Even though the temperatures are very high and the humidity is up in the 80%’s there is a good water supply, several harbours provided, which encouraged trade and growth of industry. Salvador was the first capital of Brazil due to the boost by the slave trade. Rio de Janeiro became the second capital as it was the centre of business, this then developed economically, culturally, and recently developing hugely in its tourism trade and migrant from northern Brazil as job opportunities in the tourism trade opened up.
Because Rio became so highly populated the federal government needed to do something so that people would pull out of the capital and spread out across Brazil so they come up with something very fascinating; they decided to move the capital city more inland, even though this idea was quite extreme and a high risk because the government was about to invest loads of money into this idea. They decided the new capital to be Brasília. They chose it be here because of several reasons; extraction of vast deposit of iron ore and bauxite. Brasília is also advantaged by having both the Amazonian rainforest and good coastal access either side of it. Electric power stations, and good communications have also been built, so more and more people flocked to the new capital of Brazil.