Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Non-white people now majority in Brazil - census

Updated at 12:14 pm on 19 November 2011

Non-white people now comprise the majority of the population of Brazil for the first time, according to preliminary results of the 2010 census.

Out of around 191 million Brazilians, 91 million identified themselves as white, 82 million as mixed race and 15 million as black.

The BBC reports whites fell from 53.7% of the population in 2000 to 47.7% last year.

The census was conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography & Statistics.

The number of people identifying as black rose from 6.2% to 7.6%, while the number saying they were of mixed race rose from 38.5% to 43.1%.

Among minority groups, 2 million Brazilians identified themselves as Asian, and 817,000 as indigenous.

Copyright © 2011, Radio New Zealand