Brazil has 26 states (estados) and one Federal District (Distrito Federal), which together make 27 federative units. The Federal District holds the national capital, Brasília, and is not counted as a state. The largest state by far is Amazonas, at 1,559,159 km², and the most populous is São Paulo, with 44,411,238 people at the 2022 census, out of a national total of 203,080,756. The smallest state is Sergipe (21,915 km²) and the least populous is Roraima (636,707). For statistics and planning, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) groups the 27 units into five regions: North, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and South. That is the order this guide follows, with every population figure taken from the 2022 census and every area from IBGE's official state areas.
Why Brazil Counts 26 States Plus the Distrito Federal
Each state has its own constitution, a directly elected governor and vice governor, a single-chamber legislative assembly and its own court system, topped by a state Court of Justice. States are divided into municipalities, 5,571 of them nationwide, each with an elected mayor and council. The Federal District is the odd one out. It has a governor and a legislature like a state, but it cannot be split into municipalities, so its government also does the work of a city council, running a set of administrative regions directly.
In Congress every unit is equal in one chamber and unequal in the other. All 27 elect three senators each, so Roraima has the same Senate weight as São Paulo, while seats in the Chamber of Deputies range from 8 to 70 according to population.
The count of 27 is recent. When Brazil became a republic in 1889, its imperial provinces simply became states and the old Neutral Municipality around Rio de Janeiro became the Federal District. Brasília replaced Rio as capital on 21 April 1960, and the present rectangular Distrito Federal was cut out of Goiás to contain it. The last federal territories disappeared with the Constitution of 1988, which also created Tocantins. Since then the map has held, although on 11 December 2011 voters in Pará were asked whether to carve two new states, Tapajós and Carajás, out of their state. About 66% said no.
The North: Seven Amazon States Covering 45% of Brazil
The North Region contains seven states: Amazonas, Pará, Acre, Rondônia, Roraima, Amapá and Tocantins. Together they cover about 3.85 million km², some 45% of Brazil, yet held only 17.35 million people in 2022, or 8.5% of the population. Density across the region averages about 4.5 people per km².
Amazonas (capital Manaus) is the largest state at 1,559,159 km², bigger than any country in Europe except Russia, with 3,941,613 inhabitants. Manaus grew rich on rubber in the late nineteenth century, and its opera house, the Teatro Amazonas, was inaugurated on 31 December 1896. Pará (capital Belém) is second largest at 1,247,955 km² and the most populous northern state, with 8,120,131 people.
The other five are the products of twentieth-century border-making. Acre (capital Rio Branco, 164,123 km², 830,018 people) was acquired from Bolivia under the Treaty of Petrópolis in 1903 and became a state in 1962. Rondônia (capital Porto Velho) began in 1943 as the federal territory of Guaporé, was renamed in 1956 and became a state in 1981. Roraima (capital Boa Vista) started as the territory of Rio Branco, took its present name in 1962 and became a state in 1988. It remains the least populous unit, with 636,707 people, but it grew by 41.3% between the 2010 and 2022 censuses, the fastest rate in the country. Amapá (capital Macapá, 733,759 people) was detached from Pará in 1943 and also gained statehood in 1988. Tocantins, the newest state, was created from northern Goiás by the 1988 Constitution, with the planned city of Palmas as its capital.
The Northeast: Nine States From Maranhão to Bahia
No region has more states than the Northeast, with nine: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia. They cover about 1.55 million km² and held 54.66 million people in 2022, 26.9% of Brazilians. This is the oldest part of the map. Bahia, Pernambuco and Maranhão all trace their origins to the hereditary captaincies Portugal laid out along the coast in 1534.
Bahia is the region's giant, with 564,733 km² and 14,141,626 people, the fourth-largest population of any state. Its capital, Salvador, was the capital of colonial Brazil from 1549 until 1763, when the seat moved to Rio de Janeiro. Pernambuco (capital Recife) had 9,058,931 people and is unusual in that it governs an ocean district: the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, about 350 km offshore, was a federal territory from 1942 until the 1988 Constitution returned it. It is not a municipality but Brazil's only state district, run by an administrator appointed by the governor. Ceará (capital Fortaleza) had 8,794,957 people and Maranhão (capital São Luís) 6,776,699.
The smaller states sit in a tight chain along the Atlantic bulge. Sergipe (capital Aracaju) is the smallest state in Brazil at 21,915 km², with 2,210,004 people. Alagoas (capital Maceió, 27,779 km²) is next smallest and one of the most densely settled, at about 113 people per km², while its population barely moved between censuses, rising just 0.23%. Paraíba (capital João Pessoa) had 3,974,687 people, Rio Grande do Norte (capital Natal) 3,302,729 and Piauí, whose capital Teresina is the only northeastern capital not on the coast, 3,271,199.
The Central-West: Goiás, the Two Mato Grossos and Brasília
The Central-West is the only region that contains the Federal District, which sits alongside three states: Goiás, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul. The region covers about 1.61 million km² and had 16,289,538 people in 2022, almost exactly 8% of the country.
Mato Grosso (capital Cuiabá) is the third-largest state at 903,366 km² and had 3,658,649 people, up 20.5% since 2010 on the back of soy and cattle frontier growth. Its southern part became a separate state, Mato Grosso do Sul (capital Campo Grande, 357,146 km², 2,757,013 people), under a 1977 law, taking with it much of Brazil's share of the Pantanal wetland. Goiás (capital Goiânia, 340,112 km²) had 7,056,495 people and lost territory twice: to the Federal District in 1960 and to Tocantins in 1988.
The Distrito Federal covers only 5,780 km², the smallest of all 27 units, but with 2,817,381 people it is the most densely populated of all 27 units, at about 487 per km². Brasília itself was built in 41 months and inaugurated on 21 April 1960 by President Juscelino Kubitschek.
The Southeast: São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio and Espírito Santo
Four states make up the Southeast, and they hold more people than any other region: 84,840,113 in 2022, or 41.8% of Brazil, on just 10.9% of its land. The region produces roughly half of the national economy.
São Paulo (capital São Paulo) had 44,411,238 people, 21.9% of the national total, on 248,223 km². It grew by more than 3.1 million people between 2010 and 2022, more in absolute terms than any other state. Minas Gerais (capital Belo Horizonte, 586,522 km²) is second by population with 20,539,989 and is divided into 853 municipalities, the most of any state. Its name means "General Mines", after the many colonial-era mines scattered across its territory.
Rio de Janeiro (capital Rio de Janeiro) had 16,055,174 people on only 43,780 km², a density of about 367 per km², the highest of any state. Its shape has changed more than most. The city of Rio was the national capital until 1960, then became a city-state called Guanabara, and only in 1975 was it merged back into the state of Rio de Janeiro as its capital. Espírito Santo (capital Vitória, 46,096 km²) is the region's smallest member, with 3,833,712 people.
The South: Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul
The South Region is the smallest by area, at about 577,000 km² (6.8% of Brazil), and holds three states with 29,937,706 people in 2022. Its climate is subtropical, and the highlands of Santa Catarina are among the few places in Brazil where snow falls with any regularity.
Paraná (capital Curitiba, 199,308 km²) had 11,444,380 people. It was part of São Paulo province until 1853, when it was split off under the Empire. Rio Grande do Sul (capital Porto Alegre, 281,730 km²) is the southernmost state, bordering Uruguay and Argentina, and had 10,882,965 people. Santa Catarina (capital Florianópolis, on the island of Santa Catarina) is the smallest of the three at 95,736 km², but it added 1,361,925 people between 2010 and 2022, growth of 21.8% that was second only to Roraima.
Largest, Smallest and Fastest-Growing of the 27 Units
Pulling the regions together, a few extremes stand out from the 2022 census and IBGE's area tables:
- Largest by area: Amazonas, 1,559,159 km², followed by Pará (1,247,955 km²) and Mato Grosso (903,366 km²).
- Smallest by area: the Federal District, 5,780 km²; among the states, Sergipe, 21,915 km².
- Most populous: São Paulo, 44,411,238, then Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro.
- Least populous: Roraima, 636,707, then Amapá (733,759) and Acre (830,018).
- Fastest growth, 2010 to 2022: Roraima (+41.3%), Santa Catarina (+21.8%) and Mato Grosso (+20.5%).
- Newest: Tocantins, Amapá and Roraima, all states since the 1988 Constitution.
The capitals are a mix of old ports and planned cities. Salvador, Recife and São Luís date to the colonial era, while Goiânia, Palmas and Brasília were built from scratch in the twentieth century. For a full list of all 27 capitals, see our guide to Brazil's state capitals, and for the city at the centre of the Federal District, our profile of Brasília, Brazil's capital. The bigger story of how 203 million people spread across these 27 units is told in our article on the population of Brazil.