page_title: Curitiba
section_title: Demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Curitiba / Demographics
caption_attribution_description: Português: Cerimônia de benção dos alimentos na Páscoa English: Food blessing ceremony on Easter Français&#160;: Cérimonie de bénissage de la nouriture aux Pâques Esperanto: Manĝaĵo beno ceremonio de la Pasko Español: Cerimónia de bendición de la comida en la Pascua
context_page_description: Curitiba is the capital and largest city in the Brazilian state of Paraná. The city's population was 1,879,355 as of 2015, making it the eighth most populous city in Brazil and the largest in Brazil's South Region. The Curitiba Metropolitan area comprises 26 municipalities with a total population of over 3.2 million, making it the seventh most populous metropolitan area in the country.
  The city sits on a plateau at 932 metres above sea level. It is located west of the seaport of Paranaguá and is served by the Afonso Pena International and Bacacheri airports. Curitiba is an important cultural, political, and economic center in Latin America and hosts the Federal University of Paraná, established in 1912.
  In the 1700s Curitiba's favorable location between cattle-breeding countryside and marketplaces led to a successful cattle trade and the city's first major expansion. Later, between 1850 and 1950, it grew due to logging and agricultural expansion in Paraná State. In the 1850s, waves of European immigrants arrived in Curitiba, mainly Germans, Italians, Poles and Ukrainians, contributing to the city's economic and cultural development.
context_section_description: According to the 2010 IBGE Census, 1,678,965 people resided in the city of Curitiba. The census revealed 1,381,938 White people (78.9%), 294,127 Pardo (Multiracial) people (16.8%), 49,978 Afro-Brazilian people (2.9%), 23,138 Asian people (1.4%), 2,693 Amerindian people (0.2%).
  In 2010, Curitiba was Brazil's 8th most populous city.
  In 2010, the city had 359,201 opposite-sex couples and 974 same-sex couples. The population of Curitiba was 52.3% female and 47.7% male.
  As with most of Southern Brazil's population, Curitiba is mostly inhabited by European descendants. The first Europeans to arrive were of Portuguese origin, during the 17th century. They intermarried with the native people and with the African slaves.
  Up until the 19th century, the inhabitants of the city of Curitiba were natives and mixed-race, Portuguese and Spanish immigrants. In 1808 foreigners were granted the right to ownership of land, and in 1853 Parana became an independent province, and these events resulted in a substantial number of immigrants from Europe.
  The first non-Iberian (Portuguese and Spaniard) immigrants to come to the city were German.
  The Memorial of Polish Immigration was inaugurated on 13 December 1980, after the visit of Pope John Paul II in June. Its area is 46,000 square metres (500,000 sq ft) and was part of the former Candles plant. The seven wooden log houses are parts of this memorial area, as a memento of the Polish immigrants' struggles and faith. Objects like an old wagon, pipe of cabbage and a print of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa (patron saint of the Polish people), form parts of the memorial. The first group of Poles arrived in Curitiba around 1871. Curitiba has the biggest colony of Polish immigrants in Brazil.
  Italian immigrants started arriving in Brazil in 1875 and in Curitiba in 1878, coming mainly from the Veneto and Trento regions of Northern Italy. They settled mostly in the Santa Felicidade neighborhood, still a centre of the Italian community.
  Nearly 20,000 Ukrainian immigrants settled there between 1895 and 1897, consisting mostly of peasants from Galicia who emigrated to Brazil to become farmers. Around 300,000 Ukrainian-Brazilians live in Paraná. The State of Paraná has the largest Ukrainian community and Slavic community.
  Curitiba has a Jewish community that was originally established in the 1870s. Much of the early Jewish congregation has been assimilated. In 1937 with the rise of Nazi Germany, notable German Jewish academics migrated to Brazil, some settling in Curitiba. Physicist César Lattes and former mayors Jaime Lerner and Saul Raiz were Jewish. A Holocaust memorial is present in the city. The community centre, a Jewish school, a Chabad house (Beit Chabad), a synagogue, and two Jewish cemeteries are there, one of which was defiled in 2004.
  Japanese immigrants began arriving in 1915, with a larger contingent arriving in 1924. Curitiba received a significant Japanese influx. They settled mostly between Paraná and São Paulo state. The city has the second largest Japanese community in Brazil, behind only São Paulo, according to IBGE. Although both cities have around the same proportion of Japanese descendants, other large cities in the countryside, such as Maringá and Londrina, have an even higher rate. Some estimates suggest that more than 40,000 Japanese-Brazilians live in Curitiba.
caption: Brazilians of Ukrainian descent celebrating Easter in Curitiba.
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