The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE (Portuguese: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística) is the agency responsible for official collection of statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil. IBGE performs a decennial national census; questionnaires account for information such as age, household income, literacy, education, occupation and hygiene levels.
IBGE is a public institute created in 1936 under the name National Institute of Statistics. Its founder and chief proponent was statistician Mário Augusto Teixeira de Freitas. The current name dates from 1938. Its headquarters are located in Rio de Janeiro, and its current president is Paulo Rabello de Castro. It was made a federal agency by Decree-Law No. 161 on February 13, 1967, and is subordinate to the Ministry of Planning, Budget, and Management.
IBGE has a network of national research and dissemination components, comprising:
Also in Rio de Janeiro are five boards and a school: Executive Directors (ED), Directorate of Research (DPE), Department of Geosciences (DGC), Department of Informatics (DI), Center for Documentation and Information Dissemination (CDDI) and the National School of Statistical Sciences
The Directorate of Research is responsible for planning and coordinating the research of nature and processing of statistical data collected by the state units; the Department of Geosciences is responsible for basic cartography, the national geodetic system, with a survey of natural resources and environment and by survey and geographical studies.
The Center for Documentation and Information Dissemination is responsible for documentation and dissemination of information produced by the institute as well as coordinating the 27 CDDIs in the country, and the National School of Statistical Sciences, besides being responsible for training the institute's employees, is a federal institution of higher learning that offers the following courses: BA in Statistics; specialization in Environmental Analysis and Management Planning, and Masters in Population Studies and Social Research.