As favelas da metrópole: Nas margens, nas encostas e nos mangues

Cerejo, Lucas Nakamura

doi:10.5281/zenodo.23540535

No. 068 Census · income Favelas and urban communities 2/4

The favelas of the metropolis

On the banks, the slopes and the mangroves

Record, downloads and citation

Map of Greater São Paulo and the Santos coast on a light grey background, with municipal boundaries in black and census tracts in favelas and urban communities in brown. The tracts form hundreds of small patches, densest in the south and east of the capital, in Guarulhos, the ABC towns, Osasco and the hills and mangroves of Santos, São Vicente, Cubatão and Guarujá. Callouts point to Paraisópolis, the state’s largest favela, with 59,000 residents, and Heliópolis, with 56,000. In the panel, the eight largest favelas as bars and the state’s favelas by size, from under 1,000 to over 10,000 residents. — Fig. 068 Greater São Paulo and the Santos coast (SP) EPSG:4674 Source: IBGE

Seen tract by tract, the favelas of Greater São Paulo and the Santos coast are not one patch but hundreds of fragments on valley floors, hillsides and the edges of reservoirs, streams and mangroves. The map window, from Francisco Morato to Guarujá, holds 92% of the state’s favela residents, in 2,747 communities across 51 municipalities. The two largest are in the capital: Paraisópolis, with 59,000 residents, beside Morumbi, and Heliópolis, with 56,000, in the south, next to São Caetano do Sul. Then come Vila São Pedro, in São Bernardo do Campo, with 28,000, and Chafik/Macuco and Jardim Oratório, in Mauá. In the state, only 19 favelas exceed 10,000 residents, with 403,000 people between them; most are small: 2,167 have fewer than 1,000 residents, and the bulk of the population, 1.78 million, lives in the 876 with 1,000 to 5,000.

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At a glance

Layers

setores_fcu polygon 8,008 tracts in Favelas and Urban Communities: community code and name, municipality, people and occupied households
municipios polygon 645 municipalities: people, people in favelas, number of communities and population share
regioes_intermediarias polygon 11 intermediate geographic regions
limite_estadual polygon State boundary

Metadata

Sources: IBGE — 2022 Population Census: census tract aggregates (basic characteristics), with the Favelas and Urban Communities identifier (2022)
IBGE — 2022 Census Tract Mesh (2022)
IBGE — Municipal Mesh 2025 (2025)
Extent: Greater São Paulo and the Santos coast (SP)
CRS / Projection: SIRGAS 2000 (EPSG:4674)
EPSG:4674
Software: Node.js · d3-geo · QGIS
Method: Census tracts coded as a Favela or Urban Community in the 2022 Census aggregates, drawn over the municipal mesh; residents of each community = sum of people in its tracts.
Version: v1.0.0
Licence: CC BY 4.0
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23540535

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The map without a frame, with legend, scale, reference system and credit written on it: ready for papers, lectures and slides. In two versions: with the basemap (neighbours and sea) or only the mapped area, on white.

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How to cite

Cerejo, L. N. (2026). As favelas da metrópole: nas margens, nas encostas e nos mangues [The favelas of the metropolis: On the banks, the slopes and the mangroves] (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23540535

@dataset{cerejo2026_favelas_na_metropole_sp,
  author    = {Cerejo, Lucas Nakamura},
  title     = {As favelas da metrópole: Nas margens, nas encostas e nos mangues},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  version   = {1.0.0},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.23540535},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23540535},
  language  = {portuguese},
  note      = {English title: The favelas of the metropolis: On the banks, the slopes and the mangroves. Licence CC BY 4.0}
}

How to read this plate area, projection, scale, legend and source · 3 terms

1 Area: Greater São Paulo and the Santos coast (SP) The area the plate covers. Outside it, neighbours and sea are drawn in grey, just for orientation.
2 Coordinates and projection: SIRGAS 2000 (EPSG:4674) The layers are in SIRGAS 2000; the drawing’s projection is written in the colophon at the foot of the panel.
3 Scale: Graphic scale bar in the panel The scale bar is true on the central meridian; away from it, measured distances vary a little.
4 Legend and layers: 4 layers in the GeoPackage · polygon Read the legend before the map: it tells you whether a colour is a rate or a class, and whether a circle is a total.
5 Sources: IBGE (2022); IBGE (2025) Every figure comes from a public source, with its year. The data sheet gives each one’s address.

Terms on this plate

Census tract: The smallest collection area of the IBGE Census, a few hundred households each. It is the finest grain at which income, sanitation and housing can be seen without identifying anyone.
Favelas and urban communities: The name IBGE adopted in 2024 in place of “subnormal agglomerations”: low-income housing areas with insecure tenure and incomplete public services.
2022 Census: IBGE’s door-to-door count. Results by census tract give residents, age, household-head income, water, sewerage and rubbish.

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Full record and citation

Method notes · No. 068

The Favelas and Urban Communities of Greater São Paulo and the Santos coast

Português · English

Plate No. 068, the second of four in the collection Favelas and urban communities. The state, municipality by municipality, is on plate 067.

What the files contain

Layer (GPKG)	Geometry	Content
`setores_fcu`	polygon	8,008 tracts: `CD_SETOR`, `CD_FCU`, `NM_FCU`, `CD_MUN`, `NM_MUN`, `pessoas`, `dppo`
`municipios`	polygon	645 municipalities, with `pessoas_fcu`, `n_fcu` and `pct_fcu`
`regioes_intermediarias`, `limite_estadual`	polygon	reference

It is the GPKG of plate 067, with the QGIS style setores_fcu. The CSV lists the state’s 3,136 communities: CD_FCU, NM_FCU, CD_MUN, NM_MUN, pessoas, setores and the mean point of the tracts, weighted by people (lon, lat).

Method

Tracts coded as a Favela or Urban Community in the 2022 Census tract aggregates, joined to the tract mesh by code.
Window: the municipalities of the São Paulo and Santos urban concentrations with at least 20,000 favela residents (19 municipalities), with a margin that shows their neighbours.
Residents of each community = sum of people in its tracts; the counts by size cover the whole state.

Limitations

The name is the one IBGE published; several neighbouring communities may have been grouped under one name (such as Chafik/Macuco), or a well-known neighbourhood may have been split into more than one.
The whole tract is shaded even when the favela covers only part of it.
At the plate’s scale neighbouring communities merge: to read them one by one, open the GPKG.

View this map’s folder on GitHub