The Tupi people, a subdivision of the Tupi-Guarani linguistic families, were one of the largest groups of indigenous peoples in Brazil before its colonization. Scholars believe that while they first settled in the Amazon rainforest, from about 2,900 years ago the Tupi started to migrate southward and gradually occupied the Atlantic coast of Southeast Brazil.

Indigenous peoples once comprised an estimated 2,000 tribes and nations inhabiting what is now the country of Brazil, before European contact around 1500 AD.