THE AIM of this article is the analysis of the Brazilian urbanization process during the second half of the 20th century. For this purpose it is important to take note that the 1970 Demographic Census indicated that the urban population had surpassed the rural population for the first time. The rapid contemporary urbanization due to intense internal migration concentrated the urban population in the larger Brazilian cities and metropolitan areas. During the last two decades, however, the growth rates of the larger cities has declined due to lower fertility rates and, more importantly, decreasing number of immigrants. Indeed, the metropolitan area of São Paulo, for example, presented negative net migration for the 1995-2000 period. Although internal migration trends do not point to a process of "hipermetropolitanization", it must be taken into account that as of 2000 40% of the country’s urban population still inhabited the larger metropolitan areas.
Migration; Urbanization; Metropolises
