La population urbaine au Brésil : statistiques surestimées, géographie occultée. Les enjeux politiques et fonciers des catégories territoriales de l’Institut brésilien de géographie et de statistique

This article offers a critique of the territorial categories used in Brazilian censuses by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, IBGE. The case studies presented illustrate the difficult compatibility between localized population data and a geographic approach to settlement. Numerous discrepancies appear when one compares field images (photographs) and satellite images that show the real forms of land use with official divisions that distinguish between urban and rural territories. These discrepancies are related to several factors: the legal definition of urban, the aggregation of data, and confusion between the city population (those concentrated in the capital of the municipality) and the total municipal urban population. Such discrepancies are also the consequence of historical processes and political, economic, and land issues. They affect the aggregate results of the census data (urban population, urbanization rate, etc.), as well as the local results for each municipality. The examples analyzed in this article show that the statistical and cartographic wealth disseminated by the IBGE could be better used, especially to obtain more coherent measures of « degrees of urbanity » and a better knowledge of the different forms and densities of settlement in the country.