This MA thesis is the result of research in the area of design history, based on the study of material culture. Its main object is the graphic propaganda created to advertise the General Census of 1940. The material under study comprises eleven items made up of text and illustration, which belong to the iconographic collection of the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), the institution responsible for conducting the census. The creation of IBGE, as well as the setting up of this Census, was part of the broader modernizing project of Estado Novo and was intended to fill in the gap of reliable statistical information and geographical knowledge about the national territory. Authoritarian models of government were characteristic of the thirties and forties in different countries, and they brought about the institutionalization of propaganda as a means of ideological control. This was no different in Brazil. The aim of this study is, therefore, to analyze in which way the images under consideration are part of the visual discourse of Estado Novo. For this reason, the political and cultural contexts of this period are first presented. There follows a discussion of the role of statistics and geography as used by Estado Novo based on the images created for IBGE. Finally, a graphic analysis is undertaken of each individual item of propaganda for the census, seeking to identify common themes and verifying how they transmitted ideas about the system, as well as pointing out similarities with other examples of graphic design produced in the same period.