The Racial Dot Map of Brasil

The Racial Dot of Brazil is a Google Map showing the racial distribution of the Brazilian population. Each dot on the map represents one person. There are over 190 million dots on the map, with each dot colored to show the person's race.

The location and racial status of the dots on the map comes from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics census 2010. The smallest geographical unit of the census is the census sector. Each of the dots are randomly distributed within each census sector.


The Racial Dot Map of Brazil was inspired by the Racial Dot Map, a Google Map visualizing the geographic distribution, population density, and racial diversity of the USA. The map uses data from the 2010 US census, with each of the 308,745,538 dots representing the location and race of one American citizen.


The Racial Dot Map of the United States was also the inspiration for Mapping South Africa with Dot Distribution. This map shows racial distribution across South Africa and also the first languages spoken by every citizen, based on data from the 2011 South African census.

Zooming into a city on the map reveals that the legacy of apartheid is a nation still divided geographically and socially by race. Adam Frith, the creator of the map has also created a similar map based on the 2001 census data. Depressingly, comparing the 2001 and 2011 maps again reveals that the pace of racial integration appears to be moving very slowly in South Africa.


If you live in Toronto you can view a static racial dot map of your city on Toronto Visible Minorities. This map uses a single dot for every person in the Toronto area. The dots are colored by visible minority status.