Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística

Description

The immensity of the national territory allows a complex spatial distribution of the municipal capitals, from major urban concentrations to municipalities accessed by either water or air.

The location or accessibility of cities directly reflects in the way of life and in the configuration of the space, representing a structuring dimension to be considered in the management of the national territories. Therefore, territorial classification approaches that consider the location are found in the recent typologies released by statistical offices of international organizations, like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU), influencing official classifications in a number of countries. The major methodological reference for the production of the Brazilian Geographic Accessibility was the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Remoteness Structure, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which considers vast territorial extensions and a diversity of accessibility conditions similar to the Brazilian territory.

When proposing the Geographic Accessibility Index, the IBGE contributes to better understand the accessibility of the Brazilian municipal capital in relation to the most important municipalities in their regions. The Brazilian municipalities were classified according to the distances (road and waterway) between their respective capitals and the three major hierarchies of the Areas of Influence of Cities 2007.

The results are derived from the Classification and Characterization of Rural and Urban Spaces publication with adaptations, like the location of airports and the reduction of the categories, as asked by the Federal Senate.

Objective

The major goal is to produce an objective index, with a public methodology, able to classify the national territory in accessible areas, very accessible areas, remote areas and very remote areas.