The publication 2021 Amazon Facts summarizes economic, social, and environmental information from the Legal Amazon. This report is part of the Amazon 2030 initiative and was prepared based on secondary data from various public, research, and civil society institutions.
In Brazil, there are two main geographic territories for the region: Amazon biome and Legal Amazon. The Amazon biome encompasses 4.2 million km2, is defined as a “set of similar ecoregions, fauna, flora, and ecological dynamics and processes”, comprising tropical rainforests, an extensive hydrographic network, and enormous biodiversity. The Amazon biome represents 48% of the national territory.
The Legal Amazon encompasses approximately 5 million km2 and includes the entire area of the Amazon biome, as well as part of the Cerrado and Pantanal biome. It covers all the states of the North Region (Acre, Amazonas, Amapá, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, and Tocantins), Mato Grosso and part of Maranhão. The Legal Amazon represents 59% of the national territory.
Another concept is the so-called Pan-Amazon, a territory that goes beyond Brazil and is also distributed among eight other countries. The Pan-Amazon has an estimated area of 7.8 million km2, of which Brazil holds 64%. Then comes Peru (10%), Bolivia (6%), Colombia (6%), Venezuela (6%), and the rest (8%), which is distributed between Ecuador, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname. The population is estimated at 38 million inhabitants.
The population of the Legal Amazon increased from 8.2 million in 1972 to 28.1 million inhabitants in 2020, which represents 13% of the Brazilian population. The demographic density in the region is still low: 5.6 inhabitants per km2. In relation to the states, Pará is the most populous, with 8.8 million, followed by Maranhão (5.9 million) and Amazonas (4.2 million). On the other hand, Amapá (862 thousand) and Roraima (631 thousand) are the least populated states in the region. The Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Legal Amazon totaled BRL 613.3 billion in 2018, which represents only 8.7% of Brazil’s GDP.
