Brazil's population is very diverse, comprising many races and ethnic groups. In general,Brazilians trace their origins from four sources of migration:

• Amerindians, Brazil's indigenous population, which are believed by some archeologists to be human groups that migrated from Siberia across the Bering Strait around 9000 BC.
• Portuguese colonists and settlers, arriving from 1500 onward.
• African slaves brought to the country from 1530 until the end of the slave trade in 1850.
• Diverse groups of immigrants from Europe, Asia and the Middle East arriving in Brazil during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

It is believed that the Americas were settled by three migratory waves fromNorthern Asia. The Native Brazilians are thought to descend from the first waveof migrants, who arrived in the region around 9000 BC. The main Native Braziliangroups are the Tupi-Guarani, the Jê,the Arawaks and the Caraibas (Caribs). The Tupi-Guaranination, originally from the Parana river basin and also the main of Native-Paraguayan nations, had spread allalong the Brazilian coastline from South to North and got to be known by thePortuguese as "Os Índios da Língua Geral" ("The Indians of the GeneralLanguage"); the Jê nation occupied the mostof the interior of the country from Maranhão to Santa Catarina. The Arawaks and the Caribs, the last ones to get in contact with thePortuguese, lived in the North and Northwest of Brazil.

The European immigration toBrazil started in the sixteenth century, with the vast majority of themcoming from Portugal. In the firsttwo centuries of colonization, 100,000 Portuguese arrived in Brazil (around 500colonists per year). In the eighteenth century, 600,000 Portuguese arrived(6,000 per year)^[140]. The first region to be settled by thePortuguese was Northeastern Brazil, followed by the Southeasternregion.

The original Amerindian population of Brazil (between two and five million)has in large part been exterminated or assimilated into the Portuguesepopulation^[141]. The Mamelucos (or Caboclos, a mixed race between Whites and Amerindians) have always been present in manyparts of Brazil.

Another important ethnic group, Africans, first arrived as slaves. Many came from Guinea, although by the end of theeighteenth century many had been taken from Angola and Mozambique (or, in Bahia, from Nigeria). By the time of the end of the slave trade in1850, around three to five million slaves had been brought to Brazil – 37% ofall slave traffic between Africa and the Americas. Nowadays, there are stillimmigration waves coming from the African continent, from countries such as Cape Verde and Sierra Leone.

The largest influx of European immigrants to Brazil occurred in the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to the Memorial doImigrante statistics data, Brazil attracted nearly 5 million immigrantsbetween 1870 and 1953.^[142][143] These immigrants were dividedin two groups: a part of them was sent to Southern Brazil to work as small farmers. However, the biggest part of the immigrants wassent to Southeastern Brazil to work in the coffee plantations. The immigrants sent to Southern Brazilwere mainly Germans (starting in 1824,mainly from Rhineland-Palatinate, Pomerania, Hamburg, Westphalia, etc) and Italians (starting in 1875, mainly from the Veneto and Lombardia). In the South, the immigrants establishedrural communities that, still today, have a strong cultural connection withtheir ancestral homelands. In Southeastern Brazil most of the immigrants wereItalians (mainly from the Veneto, Campania, Calabria and Lombardia), Portuguese (mainly from Beira Alta, Minho and AltoTrás-os-Montes), Spaniards(mainly from Galicia and Andalusia).

Notably, the early part of the twentieth century saw a large influx of Japanese (mainly fromHonshū, Hokkaidō and Okinawa) and Arabs(from Lebanon and Syria). These Arab immigrants were -and still are-wrongly called "Turks"by many Brazilians because theiroriginal countries were still under Turkish rule back in the day Arabimmigration to Brazil began. The number of actual Turks who immigrated to Brazil was in fact verysmall.

The 2000 IBGE census found Brazil'spopulation consists of: 53.7% white,38.5% multiracial, 6.2% black, 0.5% Asian, 0.4% Amerindian and 0.7%unspecified.^[144]

Brazil's population is mostly concentrated along the coast, with a lowerpopulation density in the interior. The population of the southern states ismainly of European descent, while the majority of the inhabitants of the northand northeast are of multiracial ancestry (Amerindians, Africans andEuropeans). According to the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, racism is anunbailable crime and must be met with imprisonment. This is taken veryseriously.