Key Facts

Rio De Janeiro is the 2nd largest city in Brazil with a population of 6.1 million. Known for its beautiful beaches, scenic landscape, and festive Carnival, the city attracts more than 2.1 million tourists each year. Despite its reputation as the “most amiable city on earth”, Rio de Janeiro is plagued with extreme income disparity, drug trafficking, corruption, and a subpar educational system.

In 2009 livability poll the Economic Intelligence Unit ranked Rio de Janeiro 92 out of 140 worldwide livable cities. The survey defines a livable city by assessing the ability of residents to live in a location based on the categories of stability, healthcare, culture, environment, education and so on.  According to various factors, the survey rates each city on a scale ranging from intolerable to acceptable.  Rio de Janeiro received an overall score of 69.2 indicating that the city has negative factors impacting daily living.

Factors affecting the quality of life in Rio de Janeiro are the following:  poverty rate in which 20% of the population lives in hillside slums known as favelas; violence resulting in more than 2000 murders per year; police and political corruption; functional illiteracy; and deforestation that has destroyed 20% of the rainforest. Since nearly 1000 densely populated favelas in Rio de Janeiro are the breeding ground for gangs and drug related crime, the government will spend $17 million to build co-walls around slum areas to prevent their spread into the forest.

Mercer’s study indicates the detailed assessments and evaluations of 39 key qualities of living determinants: Political and social environment, Economic environment, Socio-cultural environment, Health and Sanitation, Schools and Education, Public services and transportation, Recreation, Consumer goods, Housing, Natural environment

The globalization has provided Brazilian society with better access to consumer goods such as food, cars, computers, and...