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but it may be due to the excessive infant mortality among the lower classes, where an observance of the simplest sanitary laws is practically unknown. The census of the 31st of December 1900 was strikingly defective; it was wholly discarded for the city of Rio de Janeiro, and had to be completed by office computations in the returns from several states. The compilation of the returns was not completed and published until May 1908, according to which the total population was 17,318,556, of which 8,825,636 were males and 8,492,920 females. Not including the city of Rio de Janeiro, whose population was estimated at 691,565 in conformity with a special municipal census of 1906, the total population was 16,626,991, of which 15,572,671 were Roman Catholics, 177,727 Protestants, 876,593 of other faiths. The returns also show a total of 3,038,500 domiciles outside the federal capital, which gives an average of 5.472 to the domicile. These returns will serve to correct the exaggerated estimate of 22,315,000 for 1900 which was published in Brazil and accepted by many foreign publications.

The racial character of the people is not uniform throughout the republic, the whites predominating in the southern states, the Indians in Amazonas and, probably, Matto Grosso, and the mixed races in the central and northern coast states. The excess of whites over the coloured races in the southern states is due to their smaller slave population and to the large number of immigrants attracted to them. Slavery was not abolished until the 13th of May 1888, but a number of successful colonies had already been founded in these states. Other colonies were founded in Bahia, Espirito Santo and Rio de Janeiro during the same period, but they were unsuccessful, partly because of the competition of slave labour. Since the abolition of slavery immigration has poured a large number of labourers into the coffee-producing states, and with beneficial results. This strengthening of the white population of the South with fresh European blood must eventually divide Brazil into two distinct sections: the white states of the south, and the mixed or coloured states of the north. The introduction of European immigrants dates from 1818 when a Swiss colony was located at Nova Friburgo, near Rio de Janeiro, and it was continued under the direction and with the aid of the imperial government down to the creation of the republic. Since then the state governments have assumed charge of immigration, and some of them are spending large sums in the acquisition of labourers. The old system of locating immigrants in colonies, or colonial nuclei, which involved an enormous outlay of money with but slight benefit to the country, has been superseded by a system of locating the immigrants on the large plantations under formal contracts. In some of the coffee districts these contracts have resulted very profitably to the Italian labourers. The total number of colonists and immigrants entering Brazil between 1804 and 1902, inclusive, according to official returns, was 2,208,353. The arrivals fluctuate greatly in number from year to year, influenced by the prevailing economic conditions in the country. At first the Portuguese outnumbered all other nationalities in the immigration returns, but since the abolition of slavery the Italians have passed all competitors and number more than one-half the total arrivals. Of the 700,211 immigrants located in the state of São Paulo from 1827 to the end of 1896, no less than 493,535 were Italians, and their aggregate throughout the republic was estimated in 1906 at more than 1,100,000. The German immigration, of which so much has been written for political ends, has been greatly over-estimated; trustworthy estimates in 1906 made the German contingent in the population vary from 350,000 to 500,000. They are settled chiefly in colonies in the southern states, and form a most desirable body of settlers.

Divisions and Towns.—The republic is divided into twenty states and one federal district, which are the same as the provinces and “municipio neutro” of the empire. Their names also remain unchanged, except that of the federalized district in which the national capital is located, which is called the “districto federal.” The republic has no territories, although Amazonas, Matto Grosso, Pará and Goyaz cover an immense region of uninhabited and only partially explored territory. The states are subdivided into comarcas, or judicial districts, and into municipios, or townships, which is the smallest autonomous division. The constitution provides for the autonomy of the municipalities in order to safeguard the permanence of representative institutions. The parochia, or parish, an ecclesiastical division, is often used for administrative purposes, but it has no political organization. The names, areas, and populations of the states, together with the names and populations of their capitals, are as follows:—

States.	Area,[1] Sq. miles.	Population[2]		State Capitals.	Population,[3]  Census 1890.
		Census 1890.	Census 1900.
Alagôas	22,584	511,440	649,273	Maceió	31,498
Amazonas	742,123	147,915	249,756	Manáos	38,720
Bahia	164,650	1,919,802	2,117,956	São Salvador[4]	174,412
Ceará	40,253	805,687	849,127	Fortaleza	40,902
Espirito Santo	17,313	135,997	209,783	Victoria	16,887
Federal District	538	522,651	691,565	Rio de Janeiro	522,651
Goyaz	288,549	227,572	255,284	Goyaz4	17,181
Maranhão	177,569	430,854	499,308	S. Luiz do Maranhão4	29,308
Matto Grosso	532,370	92,827	118,025	Cuyabá	17,815
Minas Geraes	221,961	3,184,099	3,594,471	Ouro Preto[5]	59,249
Pará	443,922	328,455	445,356	Belem4	50,064
Parahyba	28,855	457,232	490,784	Parahyba	18,645
Paraná	85,455	249,491	327,136	Curityba	24,553
Pernambuco	49,575	1,030,224	1,178,150	Recife4	111,556
Piauhy	116,529	267,609	334,328	Therezina	31,523
Rio de Janeiro	26,635	276,884|	274,317	Nictheroy	34,269
Rio Grande do Norte	22,196	268,273	1,149,070	Natal	13,725
Rio Grande do Sul	91,337	897,455	926,035	Porto Alegre	52,421
Santa Catharina	28,633	283,769	320,289	Desterro[6]	30,637
São Paulo	112,312	1,384,753	2,282,279	São Paulo	64,934
Sergipe	15,093	310,926	356,264	Ararajú	16,336
Brazil	3,228,452	14,333,915	17,318,556

Communications.—Railway construction in Brazil dates from 1852, when work was initiated on the Mauá railway running from the head of the bay of Rio de Janeiro to the foot of the Serra where Petropolis is situated. The road is 10 m. long, and its first section was opened to traffic on April 30, 1854, and its second December 16, 1856. The mountain section, 5⁠1/2⁠ m. long, which uses the Riggenbach system from the terminal to Petropolis, was constructed between 1881 and 1883. The development of railway construction in Brazil has been impeded to a great extent by two unfavourable conditions—by the chain of mountains or plateau escarpments which follow the coast line and obstruct communication with the interior, and by the detached positions of the settlements along the Atlantic, which compel

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1. The areas are reduced from the planimetrical calculations made at Gotha and used by A. Supan in Die Bevölkerung der Erde (1904). They are corrected to cover all boundary changes to 1906.
2. The census of 1890 is the last one of which complete returns are published. That of 1900 was notoriously inaccurate in many instances.
3. The census returns are for municipalities, and not for cities proper. As a municipality covers a large extent of country, the population given is larger than that of the urban parishes, and is therefore not strictly correct according to European practice.
4. The Brazilian official titles are given for the state capitals: Belem for Pará; São Luiz for Maranhão; São Salvador for Bahia; and Recife for Pernambuco.
5. The capital of Minas Geraes in 1890 was Ouro Preto; it has since been transferred to Bello Horizonte, or Cidade de Minas, which has an estimated population of 25,000.
6. Since the naval revolt of 1893–1894 the name of the capital of Santa Catharina has been changed from Desterro to Florianopolis in honour of President Floriano Peixoto.