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Brasília, capital of Brazil: facts and figures

Brasília is the capital of Brazil. It has about 4,800,000 residents, which makes it the 32nd most populous capital of the 172 in DailyGeo's atlas, and it sits 1,085 m above sea level. Its nearest neighbouring capital is Asunción, 1,458 km away.

Key figures

FigureValue
CountryBrazil
ContinentSouth America
City population4,800,000 residents
World rank by population32nd of 172
Elevation1,085 m
Founded1960
Time zoneAmerica/Sao_Paulo
Coordinates15.79° S, 47.88° W
Country population212,812,405 residents
Country GDP2.3 trillion US dollars
GDP per capita$10,713
Life expectancy76.0 years
Internet users84.5 %
Big Mac priceR$23.90 (about $4.71)

Climate through the year

Brasília averages 20.5 °C from June to August and 22.5 °C from December to February. July is the coldest month of the year and October the warmest, and the city receives 1,082 mm of precipitation in an average year.

Monthly means from ERA5 reanalysis, 2015 to 2024.
MonthMean temperature
January22.6 °C
February22.4 °C
March22.3 °C
April22.0 °C
May20.8 °C
June20.0 °C
July19.8 °C
August21.8 °C
September24.2 °C
October24.4 °C
November22.4 °C
December22.6 °C

What makes it stand out

  • Age: most recently founded capital in South America (1960).
  • Prices: 2nd cheapest capital for a Big Mac in South America ($4.71).
  • Isolation: most isolated capital in South America (1,458 km).

Nearest capitals

Distances are great-circle distances between city centres, which is what the Capitals game measures when it tells you how far a guess was from the answer. Asunción is the closest capital to Brasília.

CapitalCountryDistance
AsunciónParaguay1,458 km
La PazBolivia2,166 km
MontevideoUruguay2,280 km
Buenos AiresArgentina2,340 km
ParamariboSuriname2,538 km

How to remember it

Reading a figure once rarely fixes it in memory. Attach Brasília to a place and a number you already know: it is 1,458 km from Asunción, and it is the 32nd largest capital in the atlas. Then practise retrieving it. DailyGeo Capitals gives you one mystery capital a day with distance, direction, language and population clues, the memorising method explains the review schedule, and the capitals index lists all 172.

To see how Brazil compares with every other country on figures like these, the most expensive Big Mac index ranks them on geopolitix, a country-ranking game by the same maker as DailyGeo.

Sources

  • City population and coordinates: DailyGeo's own game data, the same figures the Capitals game plays with. Population follows the urban area rather than the commune, which is why no density is quoted.
  • Temperature and rainfall: ten-year means (2015 to 2024) computed from ERA5 reanalysis, retrieved through Open-Meteo. Hersbach, H., et al. (2020). The ERA5 global reanalysis. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.
  • Elevation: terrain height at the city's coordinates in the Copernicus DEM, read through Open-Meteo rather than taken from a curated claim.
  • Time zone: resolved from the same coordinates.
  • Country figures: the World Bank, latest reported year for each series: Country GDP, GDP per capita, Country population, Life expectancy, Internet users.
  • Big Mac price: The Economist's Big Mac index, from its published dataset. The index covers about 55 economies, so most capitals here have no figure.
  • Founding date: Wikidata, earliest recorded founding claim.
  • This capital elsewhere: Wikipedia, UNdata, Wikidata.
  • Method and limits: How this data was collected explains how each figure was collected and what it does not cover.

The short answer

Brasília is the capital of Brazil, in South America, with about 4,800,000 residents, averaging 20.5 °C from June to August and 22.5 °C from December to February.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the capital of Brazil?

Brasília is the capital of Brazil. It has about 4,800,000 residents and lies in South America.

How many people live in Brasília?

About 4,800,000, which ranks Brasília 32nd of the 172 capitals in DailyGeo's atlas by city population.

What is the weather like in Brasília?

Brasília averages 20.5 °C from June to August and 22.5 °C from December to February, with 1,082 mm of precipitation a year. These are ten-year means from ERA5 reanalysis.

How expensive is Brasília?

A Big Mac costs R$23.90 (about $4.71) there. GDP per capita in the country is $10,713, the latest year the World Bank reports.

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