Friday 12 July 2013

Demographics

Beira Mar Avenue in Florianopolis.

According to the IBGE of 2007, there were 406,564 people residing in the city (in 2010 IBGE reports a population of 421,203). The population density was 928 inhabitants per square kilometre (2,400 /sq mi). The last PNAD (National Research for Sample of Domiciles) census revealed the following numbers: 366,000 White people (90.0%), 37,000 Brown (Multiracial) people (9.0%), 4,000 Black people (1.0%), 400 Asian or Amerindian people (0.1%).

Florianópolis has a population mostly composed of Brazilians of European descent. Its mass colonization started in the mid-18th century, mostly with the arrival of Portuguese colonists from the Azores Islands. Florianópolis was thus composed mainly of Portuguese/Azoreans, Germans, and Italians. Further south, some neighborhoods also preserve their rural village identity, and the heritage left by their Azorean ancestors is noticeable in their manner of speaking, in their handicraft activities, and traditional festivities.

The small village of Santo António de Lisboa (Saint Anthony of Lisbon) is an example of architecture of that period and in Ribeirão da Ilha, the oldest part of the capital, the inhabitants still speak the Azorean dialect which is difficult to understand at first. In Ribeirão da Ilha is the church of Our Lady of Lapa do Ribeirão, built in 1806. Lagoa da Conceição, with its many sand dunes, restaurants and seaside night life and where women make lace to sell in the street, has also managed to retain many traces of its colonial architecture.

On the other side, the city has taken on a cosmopolitan air with the arrival of Brazilians from other states and foreigners who chose to live there. The island, which at the beginning of the colonization period, was an important whale hunting centre, is today a technological pole of the IT industry. A State Capital of interest to tourism, Florianópolis is currently inhabited by about 400,000 people, a number that triples every summer. The metro area has about 980,000 people.

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