What is the ethnic makeup of Brazil?
The answer is complex and rich. Brazil is a racially mixed country in which the majority of people have ancestors in more than one of the three main groups: white Europeans (mostly Portuguese); black Africans (mainly from the west of the continent); and the original indigenous Indian population. In the first half of the 20th century, as a consequence of war and economic pressures, sizeable contingents of immigrants came to Brazil from various parts of western, central and eastern Europe. The first 500 or so immigrants from Japan arrived in Brazil in 1908, to be followed by another quarter of a million over the the next sixty years. It is a little-known fact that today Brazil contains the largest number of people of Japanese ancestry outside Japan, most of whom live in So Paulo state or the south of the country. What is the ethnic makeup of Brazil? Brazil is the sixth most populous country in the world after China, India, the United States, Indonesia and the Russian Federation. Its poul
