Demographics of Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro City is home to more than 6 million people, accounting for about 35% of the population of Rio de Janeiro State. Portuguese remains the most widely spoken language and Rio de Janeiro is the second city in the Portuguese speaking world.
Brazil with Michael Palin
From Minas Palin goes down to Rio de Janeiro, population six and half million and capital for 125 years, host to the next 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. Rio has always had a reputation as a party town but also has suffered from terrible violence, with heavily armed drug gangs controlling the notorious shanty towns or favelas that make up a large part of the city. The authorities have decided to spend some of Brazil's new money on healing the rift between the favelas and the rest of the city. The policy of "pacification" aims to drive the drug gangs out and fund new infrastructure, such as cable cars, and social programmes to make the favelas truly part of the city. Palin visits the BOPE (Special Operations Battalion) used to combat what was (according to what is said in the show) some of the most violent places on Earth and to see how lives have been transformed by pacification.