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Urbanized Areas

Description

The urbanized areas of Brazil result from the mapping of the urban sprawl in Brazilian cities with the objective of monitoring the process of urbanization of the territory. The mapping of urban sprawl based on the use of satellite images creates a vector layer that delimitates the constructed areas in Brazilian cities. That is a growing demand from society and from the government in an attempt to understand the history of expansion of cities and the geographic dynamics now in progress in the Brazilian territory. The current mapping provides input for the classification and ordering of land, thus contributing to create a national view of issues related to the urban space.  

About the publication - 2022

Monitoring Urbanized Areas is one of the most significant pillars for understanding the evolution of society and the organization of the Brazilian territory. Its importance lies in the periodic monitoring that reveals the pace and intensity with which natural or rural areas are converted into urban patterns, allowing the physical expansion of cities and the spacing of preserved areas to be measured.

It also allows to portray and project the distribution of urbanization, providing essential data for urban planning, for the implementation of public infrastructures and impacting the analysis of issues such as mobility, housing and sustainability. 

Therefore, with the aim of portraying this phenomenon from a morphological perspective, the IBGE brings to the public the fourth edition of the mapping of Urbanized Areas in Brazil, with reference year 2022. The product presents the evolution of urbanization in Brazil through analytical comments illustrated with cartograms, tables and graphs on the main results of the survey, establishing comparisons with the previous edition, from 2019. 

Among the main innovations of this edition are the adoption of criteria of a minimum area of ​​one hectare for the acquisition of features, the use of images with higher spatial resolution in relation to the previous mapping, now with four meters, and the improvement of the criteria associated with the identification of the Other Urban Equipment class. The entire methodology and operational procedures adopted in this study are fully described in the Technical Notes, which accompany this report and are accessible on this page.

Finally, it is worth highlighting that this publication is aligned with the IBGE's mission of portraying Brazil with information essential to understanding the reality and exercising citizenship, guiding actions aimed at sustainability, resilience and territorial equity, in line with the Sustainable Development Goal - SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) of the 2030 Agenda and the New Urban Agenda, both adopted by the United Nations. 

 

Main results - 2022

#seriehistorica2022103103828505

More on the product - 2022

Publication

Applications

Databases and tables

SIDRA - IBGE System of Automatic Retrieval

Maps

Publications - 2022

Learn more - 2022

Downloads

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News and Releases

IBGE releases 4th edition of Urbanized Areas of Brazil series

This Tuesday (18), the IBGE made available to the public the fourth edition of the Urbanized Areas of...

18/08/2026

Southeast concentrates more than one third of urbanized areas in Brazil

In 2019, Brazil had 45,945 km2 of urbanized areas, the equivalent to 0.54% of the Brazilian area. More...

23/11/2022

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Errata

  • Calendar error in the release of "Urbanized Areas of Brasil 2022"

    Published date: 15/07/2026

    Description:
    Error due to non-compliance with the scheduled release date for the product, as set in the calendar made available in December 2025. The product was postponed due to the need to adjust timelines during its internal production stages. Consequently, the release of the "Urbanized Areas of Brazil 2022" product was moved from July to August 2026.

    Actions: The release calendar has been amended.

    Access here
  • Calendar error in release: Brazilian Urbanized Areas

    Published date: 31/07/2025

    Description:
    Error characterized for not meeting the scheduled release date of the product, according to calendar released in December 2024. The product has been postponed due to the need to readjust the deadlines during the steps of its production. Therefore, the release of the product "Brazilian Urbanized Areas" has been changed from 2025 to 2026.

    Actions: The release calendar has been changed.

    Access here
  • Replacement in the Map of Urbanized Areas 2015

    Published date: 02/07/2019

    Description:
    Replacement of Map 13 - Urbanized areas of Urban Concentrations of "Piracicaba/SP", "Campinas/SP", "Americana - Santa Bárbara d'Oeste/SP" and "Jundiaí/SP", SP due to an inversion in the toponym of a dam called Represa do Salto Grande.

    Actions: The document was corrected and replaced on the IBGE website. 

    Access here
  • Replacement of the Complete Publication in PDF format of the Urbanized Areas 2015

    Published date: 02/02/2018

    Description:  Modification of legends in pictures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of 'Elaborated by the Geography Department of the IBGE based on an image captured from Google Earth in 2017' into 'Elaborated by the Geography Department of the IBGE based on an RapidEye images for the period 2011 - 2014'.

    Actions: The file was amended and replaced on the portal.

    Access here
  • Substituição da base de dados das Áreas Urbanizadas 2015 (2)

    Published date: 01/02/2018

    Description: Modification in the nomenclature of Table 1 (formats .ots, .xls and .xlsx), in the momenclature of the shapefile and in the file 'LEIA-ME' (.txt). Modification in the title of Mapa00_AreasUrbanizadas2015_Brasil.pdf and in Mapa01_BoaVista_Macapa_Belem_Manaus_RioBranco_PortoVelho. Standardization of map resolution.PDF. Modification in Table 1 in the values of urbanized areas 

    Access here

Links

FAQ

What are Urbanized Areas?
The Brazilian Urbanized Areas result from the mapping of the urban spots of the Brazilian cities and aims at monitoring the urbanization steps in the Brazilian territory.

Which are the differences between the 2005 and 2015 mapping?
The differences regard methodologies and inputs, besides the different set of municipalities involved. The 2005 Urbanized Areas, for example, were based on the CBERS-2B satellite images scaled 1:100,000, while the 2015 Urbanized Areas were based on RapidEye satellite images with spatial resolution of 5 meters on a sacle of 1:50,000 or less.

What period do the images cover?
The images used as basis for the 2005 Urbanized Areas mapping cover the years 2005 and 2007. Regarding the 2015 Urbanized Areas, the satellite images cover the period from 2011 to 2014.

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