Rio de Janeiro: moving toward a new metropolitan region?

Abstract In the state of Rio de Janeiro, the clusters of Cabo Frio, Macaé-Rio das Ostras and Campos dos Goytacazes were considered, by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (2015), as special cases to be followed in view of the presence of some “relevant characteristics of the Brazilian urbanization”. In our view, such characteristics may be related to an incipient process of metropolization, especially when we take into account that, today, Brazil has different patterns of metropolises, although not every metropolitan region has a metropolis as a pole. This article aims to reflect on the process that is underway in these clusters, to verify if it presents characteristics of a process of metropolization. Some demographic indicators such as density, migration and inter-cluster pendulum will be considered.