The Human Development Atlas in Brazil includes the Municipal Human Development Atlas and the Metropolitan Regions Human Development Atlas. The Atlas is a consultation platform for the Municipal Human Development Index – MHDI – of the 5,565 Brazilian municipalities, 27 Federal Units, 20 Metropolitan Regions and their respective Human Development Units (HDU). Along with MHDI, the Atlas presents over 200 indicators of democracy, education, income, labor, housing and vulnerability with data extracted from the Demographic Censuses of 1991, 2000 and 2010.

Municipalities and metropolitan regions are important parts of a complex mosaic with a wide range of challenges, but also with tremendous opportunities. There are over 5,000 territories that abound in creativity and experience in the search for innovative solutions to local development. By providing a closer look at the municipalities, the Atlas Brazil leads the way and fosters reflections about the Brazilian human development paths.

Atlas Brazil is designed as a simple and user-friendly tool that facilitates access to information, use of data, and encourages further analyses. It is a tool that provides an overview of human development and inequality in municipalities, states and metropolitan regions. The relevance of the Municipal Human Development Atlas lays on its ability of providing information about the political unit closest to the daily lives of citizens: the municipality. The Metropolitan Regions Human Development Atlas displays inequalities at intra-municipal level comparing “neighborhoods” (bairros) in the same Metropolitan Regions.