Bahia is the state that brings together the largest number of municipalities in the Brazilian Semiarid. Of the 417 municipalities in Bahia, 287 of them are within the limits of the Semiarid region, which represents 85.6% of the entire territory of Bahia. In 2022, the total population living in this area was 7.5 million Bahians, half of the state’s population. The information comes from the Superintendency of Economic and Social Studies of Bahia.
The Semiarid region covers 11 Brazilian states and 1,477 municipalities, which corresponds to 15.3% of the Brazilian territory, and 70.9% of the Northeast Region. In 2022, there were 31 million people living in this space, equivalent to 15.3% of the Brazilian population. Considering exclusively the northeastern population, the Semiarid region concentrated 50.5% of the total population of this region.
In Bahia, although it concentrates a high portion of the population and territory of Bahia, the Semiarid region presents socioeconomic indicators below those verified for the state average. In 2021, the GDP of the municipalities in the Bahian Semiarid region was equivalent to R$140.5 billion, which represented 39.6% of the state’s GDP. The per capita GDP of R$18,393.08 was lower than the state’s per capita GDP (R$23,531.94).
