Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística

About the publication - 2021 Political Map – 1:2 500 000

The Political Map of Brazil in the 1:2,500,000 scale, in which 1 cm equals to 25 km in the terrain, is a wall cartographic representation of the entire Brazilian territory, showing the political-administrative organization of Brazil through its 26 states and the Federal District, as well as the capital of all the Brazilian municipalities, besides other cartographic information.

Due to its wide dimension (1.8 m x 2.26 m), the map is available by means of a single file and it is split into four quadrants, in order to allow the printing in conventional print shops and further handling. As it is a “wall map” and the largest map ever produced by the IBGE, it is usually exhibited in highlighting.

Produced from the continuous cartographic base of Brazil in the 1:250,000 scale (1 cm = 2.5 km), the Political Map of Brazil in the 1:2,500,000 scale provides an overview of the territory, allowing to pinpoint the 27 Federation Units and their capitals, capitals of all the 5,570 Brazilian municipalities, as well as other geographic elements that complement and characterize it.

The Map also brings a table listing the Federation Units, their respective capitals, resident population estimated for 2021, territorial area, total number of municipalities and population density, as well as it groups the FUs according to the Brazilian Major Regions.

The other cartographic information portrayed on the map corresponds to the following categories:

• Hydrography - water bodies, islands and terrains subject to flood;
• Transportation system - roads, railways, ports and airfields;
• Localities - capitals and capitals of municipalities associated with the population estimate for 2021;
• Borders - international (informative character), state, Federal District and maritime;
• Energy and communications - plants;
• Reference points - extreme points;
• Relief - mounts and peaks;
• Toponymy - according to criteria established by the IBGE´s Department of Geographic Names (GNG).

The criteria adopted for toponymy of rivers outside Brazil and capitals of South American countries follow the cartographic publication recommended by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names - UNGEGN.

Concerning the capitals of the South American countries, the spelling of the South American countries was respected as endonyms(1), also according to the International Map to the Millionth Scale (CIM). Exonyms(2) were assumed to be traditional in our culture. As simplified definitions, we consider:
(1) endonyms - foreign geographic names which, when wrote in international publications, respect the spelling of the official language of the country of origin.
(2) exonyms - foreign geographic names written differently from the official language of the country of origin.

The map is produced by the IBGE since 1940 in that scale, and this edition portrays the evolution of the Brazilian territorial division up to 2010, when the last Population Census was accomplished.

The 2021 version of the Political Map is available in GeoPDF format and can be accessed here and its metadata can be found in the IBGE´s metadata catalog.