[2] During the imperial period, the Brazilian government felt the need to obtain statistical data to better understand the country.

[2] With the establishment of the Republic, the new government reorganized the DGE and expanded its activities, implementing the civil registry of births, marriages and deaths.

The DGE was dissolved in 1931, and only in 1936 would an equivalent body be created, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

After the 1872 census indigenous people remained for 101 years without appearing as a separate category in the population surveys, only returning in 1991.

In the case of the indigenous, some due to the tone of skin, may have been classified as pardo, in addition, the vast majority of native peoples did not answer the census; several villages were not counted because it was difficult to reach them.

“Africans”, slaves, free or freed, were the majority of foreigners (46%); followed by Portuguese (33%), Germans (10.5%), Italians (2.1%) and French (1.8%).

[citation needed] The census presents, in addition to the population count, specific information about people with disabilities, access to school and professions exercised, among others.

The DGE itself recognizes that the contingent without a specific profession was “huge”, especially in the provinces of Rio Grande do Norte, Minas Gerais and Pernambuco.

[citation needed] In Imperial Brazil, contemporaries understood the country as being geographically divided into only two major regions: the north (the provinces located from Amazonas to Bahia) and the south (from Espírito Santo to Rio Grande do Sul).

To complete the picture, 48% of the urban population was concentrated in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Recife.