Which factors have affected the population distribution of Brazil the most in the past and in the present?

“São Paulo, Brazil, whose population is nearly 10,000,000, is the largest city of South America and one of the fastest growing cities of its size in the world. Squatter settlements have multiplied around urban areas as the poor and unskilled flock to the cities.”
When looking at a map that shows the population distribution in Brazil, one will see that most of the population lives along the coast. More than 90 percent of the inhabitants of Brazil choose to live on a strip of land, which is not bigger than 25 percent of the country’s total area. But which factors influence people to live there and not on the other 75 percent of the land? By looking at several sources about Brazil and its population, it can be found out why Brazil’s population is spread the way it is today. We will do this by looking at certain parts of Brazil and discuss why people have (or have not) lived there in the past and the present.

So, lets turn again to the map of Brazil. When looking at the landscapes in this sun-drenched country, Brazil can be divided up into several areas. The Amazon Basin, the dry north-east, the crowded coastline and one other area. Lets take a look at these areas more closely.
Even though Brazil is a large country, a lot of space is taken up by the Amazon rainforest. This is for most people not a very lovely place to live. The climate is humid and hot and there is too much rain to farm any crops. On top of that, the Amazon River floods every year and there are many diseases around, while there are no hospitals. And even though the forest ground is fertile, it is difficult to clear and loses its fertility in the process. Another reason not to demolish this forest is because it is the largest oxygen supplier in the world. So there are enough reasons to say why one could better not live in the rainforest. In the past however, people have lived in the Amazon Basin. That was a very long time ago, before Brazil was even discovered by the west. The first habitants of Brazil were not farmers, but hunters. They were also living along the coast, but the rainforest was as well a fine place to live, because there are many preys and the Amazon River to fish from. The newcomers were not very fond of the Amazon Basin and as time went by, most inhabitants left for the coast.
There is one exception though. A city called Manaus has managed to become a fairly populated city, even though it can be found in the middle of the Amazon Basin. This is because of its “rubber boom” that started at the end of the 19th century. Now that the rubber boom belongs to the past, Manaus has focused on the tourist industry, becoming a free port, the exploitation of minerals and hydro-electric energy sources. Therefore it is still moderately populated today.
Then there is the dry north-east, which is also known as Sertao. Here you find high temperatures, little rain and therefore infertile soils. There are no resources, such as minerals and iron, which makes this area just as attractive to live in as a dessert. Even though there is a high birth rate in Sertao, many people move to the urban areas, because there is a lack of jobs, education, medical services and clean water. Even in the past not many people have lived in Sertao. The hunters and fishermen could not maintain themselves and the first farmers could not live here because of the infertile ground.
With all this rather useless space, there is not really another option, but to live in the east and the south. You’ve been told that most of the large cities are on the coastline and this has its reasons. The weather might be hot and humid, but there is a good water supply to fertile the ground. This already attracted the first inhabitants of Brazil. The Atlantic Ocean offers trade and tourism, making (for example) São Paulo a rich city with modern services, Salvador was in old times already a city of trade and industry, because of the slave trade and Rio de Janeiro is loved worldwide for its culture. Many poor Brazilians are drawn to these cities. They are hoping for a job, but most often end up workless in bad houses around the city. However, they often do not have another choice. They are either to poor to return or they still make more money than in the region they came from.
The last area discussed can be found as well in the east, but it spreads further than the large cities. This area is made up of volcanic soil, which is fertile and a cool climate. Ideal conditions for farming one would say and indeed the inhabitants make good use of the soil. The only problem is, that there is a long winter drought and the communications and services are still poor. (The winter drought made this area very unattractive in the past.) These keep the population density moderate. Hopefully the government will spend some more money on this area to solve these problems. If that would be possible, this area would become more attractive to live in and the large cities would loose some inhabitants. This policy is already used in Brasilia (which can be found in that area) to spread the population and it is very successful. So much space in Brazil is already not habitable, why should this space be wasted as well? We notice that as we walk into the future, that it is easier to make areas habitable. With irrigation systems humans can farm on any fertile ground. It does need investments of course, but that would be worth it on a longer term.

There are more than enough factors to be called why the population of Brazil in spread the way it is in the past and the present. People need fertile land to farm on and that can only be found in the East and in the South. Sertao is too dry to have a fertile soil and the Amazon soil is useless unless there is a rainforest on top of it. Also, people want the certainty of a job. Most jobs can be found in the urban areas and not in the rainforest. The inhabitants of Brazil are only trying to make life as easy as possible for themselves and factors like a bad climate and lack of education, jobs, medical services and communication give them few other options than to move towards the coastline and most often to the large cities. In the past, these were of course not so important. The first inhabitants of Brazil were able to live in the Amazon Basin, because they were hunters and fisherman, who do not need fertile ground. With the up rise of farming all the inhabitants have moved to fertile grounds, which has eventually caused most people to live on the same spot. In the past it was very important to farm or to hunt, so people went looking for those conditions. In the present we still want that, but there are more demands on our list, like services and recourses. We can only hope that the government invests in moderately populated areas in the east or else there will be 75 million people living in the large cities in 2050. Humans cannot change the climate or the landscape, but they can provide basic services that people need and most important for this region; a good irrigation system. If that could be done, maybe more then 25 percent of the land would be used for habitation and could maybe pull back all those people that live in the slumps of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Bibliography
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· Waugh, David. Geography: An integrated approach. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes, 2000