Afro-Brazilians

Afro-Brazilians

Afro-brasileiros
Afro-Brazilians (excluding pardos) in 2022
Total population
20,656,458 (2022 census)[1] 10.17% of the Brazilian population
Regions with significant populations
Entire country; highest percent found in the Northeast and Southeast regions
São Paulo	3,546,562[1]
Bahia	3,164,691[1]
Rio de Janeiro	2,594,253[1]
Minas Gerais	2,432,877[1]
Languages
Portuguese
Religion
Roman Catholicism Protestantism Afro-Brazilian religions Non-religious others

Afro-Brazilians (Portuguese: afro-brasileiros; pronounced [ˈafɾo bɾaziˈle(j)ɾus]) are Brazilians with full or mainly sub-Saharan African ancestry. Most multiracial Brazilians may also have a range of degree of African ancestry. Depending on the circumstances, the ones whose African features are more evident are generally seen by others as "Africans" – consequently identifying themselves as such, while the ones with less noticeable African features may not be seen as such.^[2][3] However, Brazilians rarely use the term "African Brazilian" as a term of ethnic identity^[2] and never in informal discourse.

Preto ("black") and pardo ("brown/mixed") are among five ethnic categories used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), along with branco ("white"), amarelo ("yellow", ethnic East Asian), and indígena (indigenous). In the 2022 census, 20.7 million Brazilians (10,2% of the population) identified as preto, while 92.1 million (45,3% of the population) identified as pardo, together making up 55.5% of Brazil's population.^[4] The term preto is usually used to refer to those with the darkest skin colour, so as a result of this many Brazilians of African descent identify themselves as part of the pardo category.^[5] The Brazilian Black Movement considers pretos and pardos together as part of a single category: negros (Blacks). In 2010, this perspective gained official recognition when Brazilian Congress passed a law creating the Statute of Racial Equality. However, this definition is contested^[6][7] since a portion of pardos are caboclos, that is, acculturated indigenous people or people with predominantly indigenous rather than African ancestry, especially in Northern Brazil.^[8][9][10]