The Case of Salvador and Camaçari

Abstract

Salvador and Camaçari are two contrasting municipalities in the Salvador Metropolitan Region (SMR). The SMR covers an area of 2181 square kilometers. Camaçari is the largest municipality, with 33 percent of the region’s area and Salvador comes second, with 14 percent. The region’s population in 1991 was 3 109 034, the fourth largest in Brazil. In 1991 Salvador, Bahia’s biggest city, had concentrated in it 66 percent of the SMR’s inhabitants, while Camaçari held a small share of 3 percent. The region’s population growth rate between 1980 and 1991 was 2.6 percent, close to the country’s average of 2.5 percent. Salvador’s population growth was also close to the national and the regional averages, 2.9 percent, while Camaçari’s rate was 4.2 percent (IBGE, 1992: 65). Camaçari’s relatively high figure follows a trend found in the 1991 Census, which showed that northeastern migrants have tended to move to the region’s metropolitan areas rather than to the Southeast, as in the past.