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To include in a census; conduct a census of: “Every plant one centimeter in diameter or larger is censused every five years” (John P. Wiley, Jr.).
[Latin cēnsus, registration of citizens, from cēnsēre, to assess.]
A census is an enumeration of all the people of a nation or a registration region, a systematic and complete count of all who are living in specified places, usually on a specific date. The practice of conducting a periodic census began in Egypt in the second millennium before the common era, where it was used for tax gathering and to determine fitness for military services. The Romans adopted the practice in the first century B.C.E. Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem because Mary and Joseph had gone there to be enumerated in a Roman census. The Domesday Book was a census of English landowners and their resources soon after the Norman conquest. Many European nations held censuses of varying quality and completeness from time to time until the modern era, when the practice became a formal part of the business of a modern state. The first modern census in England was in 1801, and has been repeated at ten-year intervals ever since, except when interrupted by the Second World War.
In democratic societies, one important purpose of the census is to obtain a precise count of the people in each electoral district who are eligible to vote. For this reason even the politicians who oppose government "interference" in people's lives usually support the census. However, many people in nations with a past history of totalitarianism resist attempts to gather detailed personal information that is routinely gathered elsewhere.
Like most modern democracies, the United States conducts a complete enumeration every ten years, under the auspices of the Bureau of the Census, which publishes detailed reports. Some nations, such as Canada, hold an interim census at the five-year interval between the decennial census, often on a random sample basis. The rationale for this is that the composition and locations of the population is changing so rapidly that accurate current information is required to maintain essential services.
Information for the census is gathered in most countries by enumerators who visit every dwelling, systematically recording the name, sex, and age of everyone living there. Much other information is often collected at the same time and put to various uses. This may include other details about individuals and families, including ethnic origins, language, occupation, and marital status. Occasionally the census includes questions on health conditions, particularly chronic conditions and permanent disabilities such as blindness. Other useful facts include details about dwellings. This may include the number of bedrooms (a measure of crowding when related to the number of occupants); facilities for cooking and safe storage of food; sanitation and access to hot water; number of cars owned or used; number of telephones; and ownership of appliances such as television sets and computers. Some of this information has public health significance, and some is in the category of socially useful data. Some people regard questions with this level as unduly intrusive, but most willingly cooperate when reassured that the information will be used only to compile statistics. In the United States, census enumerators have all taken an oath of secrecy, and they can be punished with fines or even imprisonment if they disclose the facts they gather to any unauthorized person.
In certain countries, illegal immigrants or others living outside of conventional society avoid enumeration by various means, causing census to underrepresent the population. In parts of the United States with appreciable numbers of illegal immigrants, the proportion missed in the census may reach 10 percent. Estimates of actual numbers can be based on unobtrusive measures and indirectly obtained information such as school attendance and hospital room recordings.
(SEE ALSO: Bureau of the Census; Demography; Vital Statistics)
— JOHN M. LAST
An investigation, usually into the size and nature of a population, but occasionally into other things, such as traffic. In order to obtain complete coverage, most governments make it compulsory to participate in a census. A census is taken for a particular point in time, and while some nations require their people to note where they were at the time of a census, others ask for the respondents' place of residence. In the developed world, as well as a head count, a census would inquire into birthplace, age, sex, marital status, qualifications, occupation, family structure, and fertility. A census tract, known in the UK as an enumeration district, is a small unit of area used in collecting, recording, and reporting census data. These units may change over time; census geography design is the delineation of appropriate geographical base units from which to create, and use, a geography.
The first British census was taken in 1801, and the exercise has been repeated at ten-yearly intervals, except during the Second World War. Census data for small areas in Britain have been available in computer-readable form since 1961. From 1966 a 10% census was taken at the mid-point of the ten-year period, although financial problems meant that 1996 did not see a 10% census.
Recent advances in Geographical Information Systems (notably, the Ordnance Survey's ADDRESS-POINT, which offers all the data in digital form, and the Geography Area Planning System) have made it possible to make a clear distinction between collection geographies and output geographies.
For more information on census, visit Britannica.com.
Every ten years, the U.S. government takes a census of the American population. The first census, in 1790, found that the population encompassed 3.9 million people. The census has been conducted regularly ever since, and the American population now approaches a quarter billion.
In 1787 the Constitution mandated a decennial census as a mechanism to determine the number of representatives each state would have in the House of Representatives. The apportionment, based on a head count of the population, separated the free and the slave and excluded "Indians not taxed." The "representative population" was to be determined by summing the number of free persons and three-fifths of the slaves. Originally, direct taxes were also to be allocated among the states according to population.
The United States has been one of the most diverse and demographically dynamic nations in the history of the world. It has seen high rates of growth, rapid settlement patterns, sharp demo-graphic transitions, and major migrations, all in the context of a racially and ethnically diverse population. These patterns have made the decennial census and reapportionment very important in American political and, more recently, economic and social life. Each decade the census triggers increased or decreased power or resources for a given geographic region. Over time, the census has also come to be used to interpret the success or failure, or "virtues or vices," of various regions, peoples, and ways of life.
The major events in the history of the census are therefore intimately connected to the nation's development. The census has grown in scope and in technological and administrative sophistication through the years. The particular character and timing of the changes and innovations have been rooted in the specific social and political controversies that concerned Americans at the time. From 1790 to 1860, for example, the American population grew at the rate of 30-35 percent a decade, and the decennial census recorded the rapid territorial expansion that shifted political power westward and fueled the sectional conflict between North and South.
Between 1790 and 1840, assistants to U.S. marshals canvassed their districts and asked each household head how many people in the home fell into particular demographic categories. The figures were aggregated in the field; the secretary of state merely totaled the results he received and reported them to Congress. During these years the number of questions grew from six to over seventy.
But after the 1840 census a controversy over the accuracy of the data emerged. The census seemed to indicate extraordinarily high rates of insanity for northern free blacks. Southerners suggested the data showed that blacks were unsuited to freedom. Northerners charged the data were flawed. The data were not changed, but Congress reformed the census-taking machinery in 1850. It mandated an individual-level census, new questions--for example, on occupation and nativity--and the creation of a large, temporary Census Office in Washington to tabulate and publish the data. After 1850, separate schedules were used to obtain statistics on population, agriculture, manufactures, mortality, and additional social characteristics. The volume of published data increased dramatically.
After the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished the three-fifths compromise and led to congressional concern about the role of the census in Reconstruction. In an attempt to force the South to enfranchise the freedmen, Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment mandated that Congress deny representation to states in proportion to the adult male citizenry that was disfranchised. The 1870 census collected data on the number of male citizens over twenty-one and the number denied the right to vote. Congress revamped the machinery for the 1880 census and gave the census superintendent control of the appointment of local supervisors and enumerators.
Rapid urban growth and dramatic European immigration were the dominant demographic characteristics of the period from the Civil War to World War I. In 1890 the census superintendent reported the closing of the frontier. The census that year introduced machine tabulation to speed up data processing and permit more detailed cross-tabulations. In 1902, the Census Bureau became a permanent agency in the Department of Commerce and Labor; it remains today in the Commerce Department.
The 1920 census revealed that a majority of the population now lived in urban areas. Congress restricted immigration in 1924 and used census-based apportionments of the national origins of the population to determine the quotas of immigrants who would be admitted. Because members of Congress from rural areas resisted the loss of political power during these years, Congress, for the only time in the history of the Republic, failed to pass a reapportionment bill. But in 1929, recognizing that a constitutional crisis could result if seats were not reapportioned, Congress passed a prospective reapportionment bill for the 1930 census. It also removed the requirement for equally sized congressional districts, however, thus allowing most states to distribute the seats to maintain rural political dominance. Legislative malapportionment remained the norm in the United States until the one-person, one-vote Supreme Court decisions of the 1960s restored the connection between accurate census counts of local areas and political representation.
In the meantime the census was redirected to measure the economic and social situation of Americans. During the depression of the 1930s, the bureau began to measure unemployment and income. It introduced the sample census and a housing census in 1940 and developed the first nondefense computer (univac) to process the 1950 census. Since the New Deal, Congress has made increasing use of the grant-in-aid system to assign federal funds to state and local areas on the basis of demographic formulae, many of which are determined by census data. By 1970, the bureau had dispensed with most of the enumerators in favor of a mail census. In 1990, the bureau introduced the tiger (Topographically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) system to map the addresses of the entire nation by computer.
Census data are now employed in a wide variety of settings in addition to the original use for legislative apportionment. The data are used by members of Congress, legislators, and policymakers to plan and evaluate programs and to allocate funds to other units of government; by researchers and marketers to construct sampling frames and to obtain authoritative information on Americans; by lobbyists and advocates for interest groups to advance the goals of their constituents; and by the courts and agencies enforcing civil rights laws to measure compliance.
Census categories and classifications saturate the nation's political and social discourse. Americans conceptualize, measure, and evaluate the health and well-being of their society in terms of census data. The data and classifications from the occupational inquiries, for example, formed the basis for defining and evaluating the shape of the American class structure and potential for social mobility. Over the past two hundred years, the bureau's racial and ethnic classifications have highlighted or submerged the existence of racial or ethnic communities within the United States.
Not surprisingly, therefore, Americans have created a "census politics." Constituencies ranging from politicians to academic researchers to community leaders regularly urge the Census Bureau to provide more and better data to suit their needs. Recently, the most contentious of these debates involved the differential undercount of racial and ethnic minorities, primarily in poor urban areas.
Census officials have always found it harder to count some groups than others in the population. These include individuals without a settled residence or with more than one residence, people suspicious of government (for example, undocumented immigrants), and people living in nonstandard housing situations (overcrowded units or squatter housing). Since missing some people results in less political representation and government funding for their local areas, the courts have ruled that the Census Bureau violates the Fourteenth Amendment rights of uncounted individuals. Under court pressure, the bureau instituted a large-scale postenumeration survey (pes) in July 1990 to evaluate the complete count. The bureau may decide to adjust the April 1990 complete count if the pes results in conjunction with the census provide a better estimate of the American population.
Bibliography:
Margo Anderson, The American Census: A Social History (1988); Patricia Cline Cohen, A Calculating People: The Spread of Numeracy in Early America (1982).
Author:
Margo Anderson
See also Population.
Scientific census-taking in the United States began with the decennial census of 1850, when the scope and methods were greatly improved by making the individual the unit of study. In 1902 the Bureau of the Census was established in the Dept. of the Interior; the following year it was transferred to the Dept. of Commerce and Labor and remained in the Dept. of Commerce when the Dept. of Labor was separated (1913). In addition to being a vital source of statistical data about the nation, information from the U.S. census is also used to allocate federal resources.
The government was criticized and also sued for undercounting the homeless and minorities in the 1990 census. In 1996 the Supreme Court ruled that the decision to adjust the count is left to the discretion of the secretary of commerce. The government proposed remedying the problem of undercounting through the use of statistical adjustments to the 2000 census, but the Supreme Court ruled (1998) against the plan, and the traditional head-count method prevailed. In 2001 the government again decided to use unadjusted census figures. About 3.3 million people, largely minorities, were estimated to have been missed by the 2000 census; a smaller number were thought to have been counted twice. Unadjusted census figures are generally believed to favor Republicans in the drawing of districts for the House of Representatives.
Bibliography
See W. S. Holt, The Bureau of the Census (1929, repr. 1974); F. Yates, Sampling Methods for Censuses and Surveys (4th ed. 1980); M. J. Anderson, The American Census (1990); S. Roberts, Who We Are: A Portrait of America Based on the 1990 Census (1994).
The word census is a Latin term, and efforts during the early modern period to conduct population surveys were historically descended from the Roman census process, which was based on sworn declarations of the age, number of family members, and property of individual households. Early modern political writers were impressed by the Roman state's ability to enumerate and assess its subject population. Because the equation of a commonwealth's population with its strength had by the later sixteenth century become a commonplace, enthusiastic recommendations of the census were made by a host of thinkers, including Jean Bodin (1576), Giovanni Botero (1588), Justus Lipsius (1589), and other political thinkers. Yet, if the historical memory of the Roman census had survived the collapse of the Roman Empire, the administrative ability to actually conduct one did not. As a result, full territorial enumerations were only sporadically carried out in most of Europe until the end of the eighteenth century.
The most significant exception to this generalization was Italy itself, where true censuses (as opposed to household listings and tax surveys) were already being carried out by the end of the Middle Ages. The Italian city-states were especially (and unsurprisingly) advanced in this regard, and censuses had already been carried out in Florence (1380), Treviso (1384), Padua (1411), Verona (1473), Reggio (1473), Palermo (1479), Brescia (1493), Parma (1508), Venice (1509), and Rome (1526). Enumerations were also conducted in Italian territorial principalities, including the duchies of Ferrara (1431) and Mantua (1451), and in Sicily (1501). The mature administration of these censuses reflects the much greater sophistication of public administration in Italy than elsewhere in Europe, and early modern Italian censuses were much more than simple head counts. The Sicilian censuses, of which there were fourteen between 1501 and 1747, listed every individual by name and relationship to the head of the household, and separated out those males of arms-bearing age. By the sixteenth century, Italian censuses often recorded detailed information on the age structure of the population, and the exact age of every inhabitant was recorded at Pozzuoli (1489), Sorrento (1561), and Carpi (1591). By comparison, the English and American censuses did not list every individual by name until 1841 and 1850, respectively. It is also worth noting that the registration of births began in Siena in 1381, in Florence in 1450, and in Bologna in 1459, whereas parish registers do not survive before the mid- to late-sixteenth century in Protestant Europe, and before the seventeenth century in most of Catholic northern Europe.
Italian precocity did not mean, however, that the rest of Europe had ceased to carry out population surveys altogether, and the early modern period generated a mass of such material. Thus, population surveys begin to appear on monastic estates in France and Germany as early as the ninth century, and by the later Middle Ages full population counts were taken in several German cities, for example in Nuremberg (1449), Nördlingen (1459), and Strasbourg (1473), although these were not followed up on a regular basis.
Especially at the level of the local territory or community, a huge variety of other surveys were conducted with ever greater frequency during the early modern period. Muster rolls listing all men eligible for military service were drawn up on an irregular basis in various European communities. There was also a variety of specialized censuses, such as the Norwich Census of the Poor (1570) and the Castilian educational census of 1764, which was designed to determine the number of students who were attending various education institutions. In the Holy Roman Empire a number of territorial authorities (for example, the Bishop of Speyer in 1530, and the monastery of Ottobeuren in 1548, 1556, 1564, and 1586) compiled Leibeigenbücher, 'serf registers', which recorded the free (or servile) status of every man, woman, and child in the territory. During the sixteenth century both Catholic and Protestant episcopal authorities began conducting parish-by-parish counts of the number of communicants (all persons over twelve to fourteen years of age), and these surveys became ever more detailed and systematic during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Still more detailed was the liber status animarum, or listing of each parish resident, which the papacy, in 1614, ordered every parish priest to maintain. These listings were less commonly compiled than the more familiar baptismal, marriage, and burial registers, but many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century parish listings have survived from Catholic Europe, and in a few areas (Malta after 1687, for example) complete listings have survived for every single parish. Similar records were maintained in many Protestant areas. In England, listings have survived from scattered locations from the later sixteenth century, although it is a rare parish where more than one such survey has survived. More systematic efforts were undertaken on the Continent, especially in Sweden, where parish registration had begun in 1686. In 1749, the Lutheran parish clergy in Sweden and Finland (then a Swedish possession) were further required to maintain a continuously updated list of parish residents and submit quinquennial tabulations to the Tabellverket (Tabulation Office) of population numbers broken down by sex, age, marital status, occupation, and social status, in addition to annual statistics of births, marriages, deaths, and (in the nineteenth century) migration.
By far the most common type of early modern enumeration, however, was a survey of hearths or heads of households, made almost always for fiscal reasons. As with the census itself, the earliest such territorial hearth tax surveys were carried out in Italy, as at Pavia (1250), Pistoia (1255), Perugia (1278), Padua (c. 1281), Reggio Emilia (1315), Florence (1351), Sicily (1374), and Venice (1379). The Florentine catasto (tax survey) of 1427 went so far as to record not only the name, age, marital status, and profession of the household head, but also the number of other individuals in the family, the type of residence (owned or rented), the number and value of livestock, the value of private and public investments, and the capitalized value of real property.
Beyond Italy, England stands out as a kingdom of very early tax surveys. Because of its unusually centralized monarchy, national tax surveys began in England as early as 1086 (William I's famous Domesday Book), and were repeated with varying degrees of completeness in 1279–1280 (the Hundred Rolls), 1377 (Edward III's Poll Tax), 1524–1525 (Henry VIII's Lay Subsidy), and 1662–1674 (Charles II's Hearth Taxes). Elsewhere in Europe full territorial tax surveys were conducted in France (1328), the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire (1495), Portugal (1527), Bohemia (1653–1655), Moravia (1655–1657), Ireland (1659), and Austria (1749–1750). Before the eighteenth century these large-scale surveys were only infrequently attempted; thus in Portugal there was only a single national survey between 1527 and 1736, and this one (in 1636) was seriously inaccurate. Outside of Italy, perhaps the most regular set of national household surveys were conducted in Castile between 1528 and 1536, 1541, 1552, 1561, 1571, 1587, 1591, and 1596, and were supplemented by the so-called relaciones topográficas of 1575–1578, a set of questions about local customs, economic conditions, and institutional characteristics administered in each locality in the kingdom. Even then, the frequency of survey fell off in the following century.
Local hearth and household tax surveys were much more common than their national counterparts and grew in frequency over the course of the early modern period. Nevertheless, there were significant regional differences in detail. Thus, in northern France, local taille (direct property tax) rolls recorded little more than the payment made by each household (and even they are rare before 1650). By contrast, German tax surveys often itemized and valuated each item of a household's property, and the level of its debts, as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century.
The close connection between census taking and taxation was, of course, recognized both by administrators and those they surveyed, and fears of excessive taxation would move the British Parliament to reject a census bill as late as 1753. Nevertheless, by the end of the eighteenth century the census was recognized as an essential tool of government, and regular population surveys were initiated (or at least attempted) in Norway (1769), France (1774, 1790), Denmark (1787), Belgium (1797), England (1801), Bavaria (1818), Saxony (1834), and Austria (1850).
Bibliography
Beloch, Julius. Bevölkerungsgeschichte Italiens. 3 vols. Berlin, 1937–1961.
Blaschke, Karlheinz. Bevölkerungsgeschichte von Sachsen bis zur industriellen Revolution. Weimar, 1967.
Herlihy, David, and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber. Tuscans and Their Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427. New Haven, 1985.
Hollingsworth, Thomas Henry. Historical Demography. Ithaca, N.Y., 1969.
Mols, Roger. Introduction à la démographie historique des villes d'Europe du XIVe au XVIIIe siècle. 3 vols. Gembloux, 1954–1956.
—GOVIND P. SREENIVASAN
An official count of the population of a particular area, such as a district, state, or nation.
The U.S. Constitution requires that a census of the entire population, citizens and noncitizens alike, be made every ten years (art. I, § 2, cl. 3). The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution directs that the census will be used to determine the number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives from each state. The census is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, an agency established in 1899 within the U.S. Department of Commerce. The data gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau are used by the states to draw boundaries for congressional and state legislative districts, and by local governments to establish districts for other representative bodies such as county legislatures, city councils, and boards of supervisors.
Census data are also used to allocate federal and state funding and services. By the mid-1990s, more than $50 billion in federal aid for education, housing, and health programs to states and cities was distributed annually based on census numbers. In addition, census information is used in academic research and is sought by product manufacturers and marketers who want to know the demographics of potential consumers.
The first U.S. census took place in 1790 when some six hundred U.S. marshals went door-to-door counting approximately 3.9 million people. The 1790 census consisted of fewer than ten questions, which for each household included the name of the head of the family, the number of free white males over and under sixteen years of age, the number of free white females, the number of all other free persons, and the number of slaves.
The 1890 census counted 63 million U.S. citizens and reflected a dramatic increase in immigration, urbanization, and industrialization. That census showed that for the first time fewer than half of all U.S. workers were employed on farms. The 1890 census included questions regarding military service during the Civil War, number of years in the United States, naturalization status, reading and writing ability, and mental and physical disabilities.
By 1980 the Census Bureau conceded that the decennial censuses were undercounting portions of the population, usually low-income and minority groups in the inner cities. In follow-up surveys after the 1980 census the bureau determined that it had missed some 3.2 million persons, or 1.4 percent of the population. For example, a 1986 post-census survey of East Los Angeles estimated that the 1980 census missed about 10 percent of the Latino community, seven percent of the Asian community, and nine percent of the black community. Census officials determined that overall, nearly six percent of the black and Hispanic populations were uncounted and less than one percent of the white population.
By May 1987, the Census Bureau had determined that the 1990 census could be adjusted for undercounting by using a technique called a post-enumeration survey (PES). The PES would allow the census to be checked for accuracy by sending census takers back to a given number of households that would be representative of the entire U.S. population and comparing the information gathered with the initial head count. If discrepancies arose, the bureau could make corrections and project them to neighborhoods with similar demographic characteristics. But in October 1987, officials from the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), which oversees the Census Bureau, had decided against making any statistical adjustment to the 1990 census. As a result, in 1988, New York, Los Angeles, and several other cities, as well as a number of states and organizations, brought suit in federal district court. They claimed that the secretary's decision not to adjust the 1990 census violated their right to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and asked the court to enjoin the census. They also argued that the Commerce Department's actions were politically motivated by a Republican administration that realized that the undercounted population is historically Democratic. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, contending that the secretary's decision was not subject to judicial review. In City of New York v. United States Department of Commerce, 713 F. Supp. 48 (E.D.N.Y. 1989), the district court denied the motion to dismiss, holding that the plaintiffs had standing (the legal right) to challenge the census on constitutional grounds and that the court could review the secretary's decision.
Following the district court's decision the parties entered into a stipulation in July 1989 by which plaintiffs would withdraw their motion to enjoin the census and the DOC would reconsider its 1987 decision not to adjust the 1990 census. The agreement required the DOC to conduct a PES of not fewer than 150,000 households as part of the 1990 census in order to produce corrected counts usable for congressional and legislative reapportionment and redistricting. The agreement also required the DOC to develop guidelines under which the secretary would assess any proposed adjustment. In March 1990 the DOC issued final guidelines. The plaintiffs challenged them in court on the grounds that they were impermissibly vague and were biased against any adjustment to the 1990 census. In City of New York, 739 F. Supp. 761 (E.D.N.Y. 1990), the district court held that the guidelines satisfied the defendants' obligations under the 1989 stipulation. The Census Bureau then began the 1990 census.
The 1990 census employed more than 425,000 workers who gathered information on an estimated 250 million people in 106 million households. For the first time, the Census Bureau combined technology with traditional door knocking, using coast-to-coast computerized maps of all 7.5 million census tracts in the United States. The bureau predicted that these maps would reduce the number of errors caused by census workers' reliance on outdated state and local maps. The census cost some $2.6 billion — 65 percent more than the 1980 census — making it the most expensive count ever conducted.
In March 1990, the bureau mailed or hand delivered more than 106 million questionnaires, one to every household in the country. Most households received a short form consisting of fourteen questions covering personal characteristics and housing. One in six U.S. households received a long form with forty-five additional questions on topics such as utilities, tax, mortgage, and rent payments; place of birth; ethnic origin; and work habits. From March to June 1990 census workers continued the data collection. The bureau set aside March 20, 1990, as "homeless night." On that night, census takers, many hired from among the homeless population or those who worked with them, visited shelters and low-cost motels from 6:00 p.m. to midnight; counted homeless people on the streets from 2:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.; and from 4:00 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. stood outside abandoned buildings, counting those who emerged.
The homeless count caused a great deal of controversy. The 1990 census reported 228,600 homeless persons in the United States, compared with earlier estimates of 500,000 to 3 million. Advocates for homeless people argued that the Census Bureau had surveyed only a third of the country's cities and counties and had visited only a limited number of locations. The bureau acknowledged that its workers had avoided actually going into hideaways such as abandoned buildings and dumpsters because of safety concerns and admitted that many winter shelters had closed by the time the census was taken in late March. The bureau maintained that its homeless survey was not intended to produce a definitive count of the homeless population.
In October 1990 the Census Bureau issued estimated U.S. population figures of approximately 254 million, based on a tracking of birth, death, and immigration records. In December the bureau released a final U.S. population tally of some 249 million, based on the actual mailed census questionnaires and house-to-house interviews. The discrepancy between the two sets of numbers indicated that the 1990 census missed some 5 million U.S. residents.
By December 31, 1990, the bureau reported to the president population figures for each state as well as the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives that each state would receive. Between January and March 1991, states with early deadlines for redrawing legislative districts received totals of all persons of voting age, broken down by race. By April 1, 1991, most other states received the voting age and race data. Between April 1991 and 1993 the Census Bureau released statistics compiled from the long forms, including information on income, marital status, disabilities, types of housing, and education.
In April 1991, the bureau announced the results of its PES. Estimates drawn from the PES revealed that the census had resulted in a national undercount of 2.1 percent, or approximately 5.3 million persons out of a total population of approximately 255 million, the largest undercounting in the history of the census. For example, in one south central Los Angeles neighborhood, officials determined that census takers had underreported the number of occupants in 38 percent of fifty-eight hundred households. As expected, the undercount was greater for members of racial and ethnic minorities. Hispanics were undercounted by 5.2 percent, Native Americans by 5.0 percent, African Americans by 4.8 percent, and Asian Pacific Islanders by 3.1 percent. The PES-calculated undercount for non-African Americans was 1.7 percent and for non-Hispanic whites, 1.2 percent. Among major cities with high undercounts were Los Angeles (5.1 percent), Houston (5 percent), Washington, D.C. (5 percent), Dallas (4.8 percent), Miami (4.6 percent), Detroit (3.5 percent), and New York (3 percent).
Among the reasons given for the low counts were that certain segments of the population did not believe the Census Bureau's promise that information is confidential and will not be shared with other government agencies such as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the local housing authority, or the police; did not have addresses and thus were missed because the 1990 census was conducted primarily by mail; lived in urban high-crime areas where census takers were afraid to go door-to-door; were illegal immigrants; feared the government in general; or lacked proficiency in English.
According to the bureau, if the adjusted count were adopted, Arizona and California would each gain a seat in the House of Representatives and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania would each lose one seat. These discrepancies led state officials to renew their plea for an adjustment of the census using the PES.
In July 1991 Secretary of Commerce Robert A. Mosbacher announced his decision not to adjust the 1990 census to account for the missing 5 million people. Mosbacher said that although he was troubled by the undercount of minorities, his decision supported the integrity of the census and that the resulting disadvantage to minorities should not be remedied in the official census. He also expressed concern that adjustment might not improve distribution of representatives among the states and that uncertainty as to the methods of adjustment and assumptions behind them might cause even more dispute about the accuracy of the census.
The plaintiffs in City of New York attacked the secretary's decision, contending that it was tainted by partisan political influence and violated the Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, and the 1989 stipulation agreed to by both parties in the case. After a thirteen-day bench (non-jury) trial, the district court concluded that it could not overturn the secretary's decision (City of New York, 822 F. Supp. 906 [E.D.N.Y. 1993]). On appeal, the court of appeals concluded that, given the admittedly greater accuracy of the adjusted count, the secretary's decision was not entitled to be upheld without a showing by the secretary that the refusal to adjust the census was essential to the achievement of a legitimate government objective (City of New York, 34 F.3d 1114 [2d Cir. 1994]). On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Second Circuit, holding that the secretary's decision not to adjust the census was within the government's discretion (___ U.S. ___ , 134 L. Ed. 2d 167, 116 S. Ct. 1091 [1996]).
By October 1991, at least five state legislatures had filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 U.S.C.A. § 552 et seq.) to see the adjusted census figures in order to decide which set of numbers should be used to redraw state political boundaries. Secretary Mosbacher refused to make the adjusted numbers public, claiming they were flawed and their release could disrupt the redistricting process. In Assembly of California v. United States Department of Commerce, 797 F. Supp. 1554 (E.D. Cal. 1992), California state officials brought an action under the FOIA to enjoin the U.S. Department of Commerce from withholding computer tapes containing statistically adjusted census data for California. The DOC claimed that the information was protected from disclosure under an exemption to the FOIA. But the district court said the exemption did not apply to the census data and ordered the DOC to release the tapes. The court of appeals affirmed the district court's order to release the tapes (Assembly of California, 968 F.2d 916 [9th Cir. 1992]).
In a similar case the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reached the opposite result. In Florida House of Representatives v. United States Department of Commerce, 961 F.2d 941 (11th Cir. 1992), the Florida House of Representatives brought an FOIA action to compel the Department of Commerce to release all the adjusted census data for Florida. The district court granted summary judgment for Florida and the Department of Commerce appealed (Florida House of Representatives, No. TCA 91-40387-WS [N.D. Fla. 1992]). The Eleventh Circuit reversed, finding that the census data were exempted from disclosure under the FOIA. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case (Florida House of Representatives, 506 U.S. 969, 113 S. Ct. 446, 121 L. Ed. 2d 363 [1992]).
In light of the controversy over the 1990 census, government officials and demographers have debated how best to conduct the census in the year 2000 and later. Many demographers argue that the U.S. population has become too mobile and too uncooperative to allow reliance on mail-in-surveys and door-to-door interviews. An increase in the number of non-English speakers, undocumented immigrants, and homeless persons has made census taking more difficult and residents will become more diverse and less tolerant of government intrusion in the future. The American Statistical Association has urged the government to use scientific sampling surveys to estimate the population that has been the most difficult to count.
In preparation for the 2000 census the bureau conducted a test census in the spring of 1995 at three sites — Paterson, New Jersey; Oakland, California; and six parishes in northwestern Louisiana. The sites were selected because of their ethnic diversity and their large number of multidwelling housing units. In Paterson the bureau experimented with a multimedia kiosk, which allowed residents to answer census questions by touching a screen. In Oakland all identified households were sent a census form and blank forms were also made available at libraries, post offices, and the state department of motor vehicles. The bureau also experimented with using statistical samples from random surveys to estimate total population.
In the summer of 1995, Congress cut the budget of the Census Bureau by millions of dollars in its program to reduce federal expenditures. Bureau officials said the cuts would inhibit the bureau's ability to test new census techniques and technology that they hoped would increase the accuracy of the year 2000 census. Continuing public pressure and lawsuits over census figures could lead to new methods or new funding.
See: apportionment.
Measurement of a parameter of population by total counts of individuals—a full muster.
A census is conducted every ten years in the United States.
Tutor's tip: I hope he'll come to his "senses" (the faculties of sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste) before the "census" (count of the population).
A census is the process of obtaining information about every member of a population (not necessarily a human population). The term is mostly used in connection with national 'population and housing censuses' (to be taken every 10 years according to United Nations recommendations); agriculture censuses (all agriculture units) and business censuses (all enterprises).
The census can be contrasted with sampling in which information is only obtained from a subset of a population. As such it is a method used for accumulating statistical data, and also plays a part in democracy (voting). Census data is also commonly used for research, business marketing, planning purposes and not at least as a base for sampling surveys.
It is widely recognized that population and housing censuses are vital for the planning of any society. Traditional censuses are however becoming more and more costly. A rule of thumb for census costs in developing countries have for a long time been 1 USD / enumerated person. More realistic figures today are around 3 USD. These approximates should be taken with great care since a various amount of activities can be included in different countries (e.g. enumerators can either be hired or requested from civil servants). The cost in developed countries is far higher. The cost for the 2000 census in the US is estimated to 4.5 billion USD. Alternative possibilities to retrieve data are investigated. Nordic countries Denmark, Finland and Norway have for several years used administrative registers. Partial censuses ‘Micro censuses’ or ‘Sample censuses' are practiced in France and Germany.
While the census provides a useful way of obtaining statistical information about a population, such information can sometimes lead to abuses, political or otherwise, made possible by the linking of individuals' identities to anonymous census data.[1]
It is not unusual for census data to be processed in some way so as to obscure individual information. Some censuses do this by intentionally introducing small statistical errors to prevent the identification of individuals in marginal populations; others swap variables for similar respondents.
Whatever measures have been taken to reduce the privacy risk in census data, new technology in the form of better electronic analysis of data pose increasing challenges to the protection of sensitive individual information.
The first known census was taken by the Babylonians in 3800 BC, nearly 6000 years ago. Records suggest that it was taken every six or seven years and counted the number of people and livestock, as well as quantities of butter, honey, milk, wool and vegetables.
One of the earliest documented censuses was taken in 500-499 BC by the Persian Empire's military for issuing land grants, and taxation purposes.[2]
Censuses were conducted in the Mauryan Empire as described in Chanakya's (c. 350-283 BC) Arthashastra, which prescribed the collection of population statistics as a measure of state policy for the purpose of taxation. It contains a detailed description of methods of conducting population, economic and agricultural censuses.[3]
The Bible relates stories of several censuses. The Book of Numbers describes a divinely-mandated census that occurred when Moses led the Israelites from Egypt. A later census called by King David of Israel, referred to as the "numbering of the people," incited divine retribution (for being militarily motivated or perhaps displaying lack of faith in God). A Roman census is also mentioned in one of the best-known passages of the Bible in the Gospel of Luke, see Census of Quirinius.
Rome conducted censuses to determine taxes (see Censor). The word 'census' origins in fact from ancient Rome, coming from the Latin word 'censere', meaning ‘estimate’. The Roman census was the most developed of any recorded in the ancient world and it played a crucial role in the administration of the Roman Empire. The Roman census was carried out every five years. It provided a register of citizens and their property from which their duties and privileges could be listed.
The world's oldest extant census data comes from China during the Han Dynasty[citation needed]. Taken in the fall of 2 AD, it is considered by scholars to be quite accurate[citation needed]. At that time there were 59.6 million living in Han China, the world's largest population.[4] The second oldest preserved census is also from the Han, dating back to 140 AD, when only a bit more than 48 million people were recorded. Mass migrations into what is today southern China are believed to be behind this massive demographic decline.
In the Middle Ages, the most famous census in Europe is the Domesday Book, undertaken in 1086 by William I of England so that he could properly tax the land he had recently conquered. In 1183, a census was taken of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, to ascertain the number of men and amount of money that could possibly be raised against an invasion by Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria.
A very interesting way to record census information was made in the Inca Empire in the Andean region from the 15th century until the Spaniards conquered their land. The Incas did not have any written language but recorded information collected during censuses and other numeric information as well as non-numeric data on quipus, strings from llama or alpaca hair or cotton cords with numeric and other values encoded by knots in a base 10 positional system.
A partial and incomplete population census was taken in Afghanistan in 1979. A census is planned for 2007.
Population and housing censuses have been carried out in Algeria in 1967, 1977, 1987 and 1997.
A Population & Housing Census was carried out in 2001
National population census are carried out in Argentina roughly every ten years, the last one being in 2001.
More about census, see: National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina
The Austrian census is run by the Statistik Austria. It is carried out every ten years, the last on being in 2001.
The Australian census is operated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It is currently conducted every five years, the last occurrence being on August 8, 2006. Past Australian censuses were conducted in 1911, 1921, 1933, 1947, 1954, 1961, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2006. In 2006, for the first time, Australians were able to complete their census online.
Population censuses have been carried out in 1974, 1981, 1991 and 2001. It is done by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)
Population censuses have been taken in Benin in 1978, 1992 and 2002
Population and housing censuses have been carried out in Bolivia in 1992 and 2001.
A census was taken by apostolic vicar the bishop Pavao Dragicevic in 1743.
The Brazilian census is carried out by IBGE, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, every 10 years. The last one was in 2000. Earlier censuses were taken in 1872 (the first), 1900, 1920, 1941, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1991.
The first census was organised after Bulgarian parliament passed a law for national censuses in 1880. A special Act on Statistics was enacted in 1897. It was following on the edge European standards at the time. The area of the next census was widening for the purposes of International Statistical Institute which was planning a world wide census of the then ‘civilized world’ at the time. The Directorate of Statistics was the only institution authorized and responsible with and for organization and of national censuses. The procedure remained the same until WW-II.
During the period in review Bulgaria has organized 16 population censuses (1880, 1884, 1887, 1892, 1900, 1905, 1910, 1920, 1926, 1934, 1946, 1956, 1965, 1975, 1985, 1992 all of them ending in December and 2001 providing data by March same year). Reliability of the statistics, indeed, improved with the time.
The information in the first censuses covers a wide range of data: • Population statistic – sex, age, nationality, mother tongue, education, religion, different groups of disabled people • Occupation…. • Animal statistics- providing detailed information on the number of beasts on the village and town level; • Dwelling statistics – the data is broken down by villages/towns and by type of use – for living and for rent providing purposes • Vital statistics – marriage, number of family members, age at marriage, mortality and nativity
The Canadian census is run by Statistics Canada. The first census conducted in Canada was conducted in 1666, by French intendant Jean Talon, when he took a census to ascertain the number of people living in New France. The individual provinces conducted censuses, in the 19th century and before, sometimes in conjunction with each other. In 1871, Canada's first formal census was conducted, which counted the population of Nova Scotia, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Quebec. In 1918, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics was formed, and replaced by Statistics Canada in 1971.
Censuses in Canada are conducted in five-year intervals. The last two censuses were conducted in 2001 and 2006. Censuses taken in mid-decade (1976, 1986, 1996, etc.) are referred to as quinquennial censuses. Others are referred to as decennial censuses. The first quinquennial census was conducted in 1956.
For the 2006 Census of Canada, respondents were able, for the first time, to choose to complete their census questionnaire online. Other options for answering the questionnaire include postal mail (using a pre-paid envelope) and telephone (using a 800 number).
See also: Canada 2001 Census, Canada 2006 Census.
Alberta
In the Province of Alberta, Section 57 of its Municipal Government Act (MGA) enables municipalities to perform their own censuses on any given year. An official municipal census must be conducted no earlier than April 1 and no later than June 30 of the same year, according to the MGA's Determination of Population Regulation. If municipalities choose to make their census count official, the new population must be submitted to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing prior to September 1 of the year the census was performed. The latest census counts for Alberta's municipalities are released in the Ministry's annual Official Population List publication.
AltaPop (Alberta Population) is a very useful website that builds upon the data provided by the Province and Statistics Canada. Visit AltaPop to compare municipal and federal census results by municipality, to analyse historic population trends by municipality, and to view detailed annual population summaries either by size of municipality or sorted alphabetically.
Population censuses have been taken in the People's Republic of China in 1953, 1964, 1982, 1990 and 2000. Theses are the world's biggest censuses as they attempt to count every man, woman and child in its colossal population. Some 6 million enumerators were enganged in the 2000 census. An first economic census was taken in 2004.
Costa Rica carried out its 9th population census in 2000. INEC, National Institute of Statistics and Census is in charge of conduct these census. Past Costa Rican censuses were conducted in 1864, 1883, 1892, 1927, 1950, 1963, 1973 and 1984.
Census in the Czech Republic is carried out every 10 years by the Czech Statistical Office. The last census was taken in 2001.
The first Danish census was in 1700-1701, and contained statistical information about adult men. Only about half of it still exists. A census of school children was taken during the 1730s.
Following these early undertakings, the first census to attempt completely covering all citizens (including women and children who had previously been listed only as numbers) of Denmark-Norway was taken in 1769 [1]. At that point there were 797 584 citizens in the kingdom. Georg Christian Oeder took a statistical census in 1771 which covered Copenhagen, Sjælland, Møn, and Bornholm.
After that, censuses followed somewhat regularly in 1787, 1801, and 1834, and between 1840 and 1860, the censuses were taken every five years, and then every ten years until 1890. Special censuses for Copenhagen were taken in 1885 and 1895.
In the 20th century, censuses were taken every five years from 1901 to 1921, and then every ten years from 1930. The last traditional census was taken in 1970.
A limited population census based on registers was taken in 1976. From 1981 and each year onwards information that corresponds to a population and housing census is retrieved from registers. Denmark was the first country in the world to conduct these censuses from administrative registers. The most important registers are the population register (Det Centrale Personregister), a Building and Dwelling Register and an Enterprise Register. The central statistical office, Statistics Denmark is responsible for compiling these data. This information is available online in the Statbank Denmark.
It is possible to search a portion of the Danish censuses online at Dansk Demografisk Database, and also view scanned versions at Arkivalier Online.
Three censuses have been taken in Ethiopia: 1984, 1994 and in 2007. The responsible institution is the Central Statistical Agency.
Most of the census in 2007 was taken in August, while the Somali Region and the Afar Region were not covered. The northern Afar region is a remote, hot and arid area. The eastern Somali region (Ogaden) hosts a large nomadic Somali population and is a conflict area where Ethiopian regular forces are fighting against Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).
The first population census was taken in 1749 when Finland was a part of Sweden.
Napoleon Bonaparte began the census in France as a means of determining the
number of potential soldiers under his rule. Today, the census in France is carried out by
The first systematic population on the European continent was taken in 1719 in Prussia (roughly corresponding to today's northern Germany and western Poland).
The first large-scale census in the German Empire took place in 1895. Attempts at introducing a census in West Germany sparked strong popular resentment in the 1980s since many quite personal questions were asked. Some campaigned for a boycott. In the end the Constitutional Court stopped the census in 1980 and 1983. The last census was in 1987. Germany has since used population samples in combination with statistical methods, in place of a full census.
Census takes place every 10 years and is carried out by the National Statistical Service of Greece [3]. Last census was in 2001.
Modern population censuses have been taken in Guatemala in 1930, 1950, 1964, 1973, 1981, 1994 and in 2002. Controversial cenuses were in particular the ones in 1950 and 1964 (misclassification of the Maya population) and the 1994 census (generally questioned).
Relaciones Geográficas of Mexico and Guatemala, 1577-1585.
On May 25, 1577, King Philip II of Spain ordered by royal cédula the preparation of a general description of Spain's holdings in the Indies. Instructions and a questionnaire, issued in 1577 by the Office of the Cronista Mayor-Cosmógrafo, were distributed to local officials in the Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru to direct the gathering of information. The questionnaire, comprised of fifty items, was designed to elicit basic information about the nature of the land and the life of its peoples. The replies, known as "relaciones geográficas," were written between 1579 and 1585 and were returned to the Cronista Mayor-Cosmógrafo in Spain by the Council of the Indies.
Census takes place every 10 years and by-census between two censuses by the Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong. The last census was conducted in 2001 and the last by-census was taken in 2006.
Official decennial censuses have been taken in Hungary since 1870; the latest one – in line with the recommendations of the United Nations and the Statistical Office of the European Union – was carried out in 2001. Starting from 1880 the Hungarian census system was based on native language (the language spoken at home in the early life of the person and at the time of the survey), vulgar language (the most frequently used language in the family), and other spoken languages.
The first Icelandic census took place in 1703, following upon the first Danish census of 1700-1701. Further censuses were carried out in 1801, 1845 and 1865. The 1703 exercise was the first ever census to cover all inhabitants of an entire country, mentioning the name, age and social position of each individual. All of the information still exists, although some of the original documents have been lost.
The setting up, in 1952, of the National Register (þjóðskrá) eliminated the need for censuses. All those born in Iceland, and all new residents, are automatically registered. Individuals are identified in the register by means of a national identification number (the so-called kennitala), a number composed of the date of birth in the format ddmmyy and four additional digits, the last of which indicates the century in which the person was born (9 for the 1900s and 0 for the 2000s).
In Iceland, the National Register also doubles as electoral register. Likewise, all bank accounts are linked to the national identification of the owner (companies and institutions all have their own identification numbers).
The decennial census of India is the primary source of information about the demographic characteristics of the population of India which is the second biggest country of the world in terms of population.
The first census in India in modern times is dated 1872. It started as far back as in 1860 and was finished in 1871. Starting from there, a population census has been carried out every 10 years, latest being the fourteenth in February-March 2001.
Census is carried out by the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, Delhi under the Census of India Act, 1948. The act gives Central Government many powers like to notify a date for Census, power to ask for the services of any citizen for census work. The law makes it compulsory for every citizen to answer the census questions truthfully. The Act provides penalties for giving false answers or not giving answers at all to the census questionnaire. One of the most important provisions of law is the guarantee for the maintenance of secrecy of the information collected at the census of each individual. The census records are not open to inspection and also not admissible in evidence.
Census happens in two phases, first House Listing and House Numbering Operations and second actual population enumeration phase. Census is carried out by the canvassing method. In this method, each and every household is visited and the information is collected by a specially trained enumerator.
9 February 2001, the first day of the 2001 census was celebrated as the census day.
The first census in Israel was held in November 1948, six months after the creation of the state. Subsequent censuses took place in 1961, 1972, 1983 and 1995. The aforementioned were conducted by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics.
The census in Ireland is carried out by the Central Statistics Office (Ireland). The previous two censuses were carried out in 2002 and most recently on April 23 2006. The census is carried out every five years, except in 2001, whose census was postponed to 2002 due to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. According to the 2006 form, "any person who fails or refuses to provide information or who knowingly provides false information may be subject to a fine of up to €25,000," under the Central Statistics Act 1993.
The census in Ireland is very similar to that of the United Kingdom. That is, the "100 year" law applies here as well, as does the recent addition of a question regarding religion to the 2006 census. However, the 1911 Census for the whole of Ireland was made publicly available some time ago.
Since the very first census, the question of "Can you speak Irish?" has been asked. This has often led to misleading figures, as many people know how to speak some Irish through schooling, but do not actually speak it frequently. The 2006 census included how often you spoke the language if you had chosen the "Yes" answer if you spoke Irish.
Also, on the CSO website, instructions for non-English speaking residents of the Republic of Ireland were available. They were mock copies of the census forms, with all headings/questions etc. being translated into a particular language. These were not to be filled out, but were only a guide on how to fill out the English or Irish form.
This census also asked two unique questions relating to ownership of PCs and what Internet connection your home had. The next census will take place in the year 2011.
The census in Italy is carried out by ISTAT every 10 years. The last four were in 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001.
Japan collects census information every five years. The figures show the English translation of the 2005 census form. The form solicits information on name, sex, relationship to head of household, year and month of birth, marital status, nationality, number of members of household, type and nature of dwelling, floor area of dwelling, number of hours worked during the week prior to October 1, employment status, name of employer and type of business, and kind of work.
 Explanation of census form, side 1 |
 Explanation of census form, side 2 |
The first population census after the independence in 1946 was taken in 1952. It did only count the number of people in the households and could therefore be considered only to be a housing census. The first real complete census was taken in 1961. The following censuses have been taken in 1979, 1994 and 2004. A political sensitive issue have since the Six-Day war in 1967 been the distribution of the population in Palestinians and Jordanians.
Census in Kenya was first held in 1958, when Kenya was still a Colony administrated by the British. Since 1969 census has been taken every ten years. The last census to date was in 1999.[1]
Kosovo is formally a part of Serbia but is administrated by the UN since 1999. A population census is planned under international supervision for 2007.
The most recent census in Latvia was in 2000. Before that, it was about 6 censuses, most part of these previous censuses was in the USSR time. The census in Latvia is carried out by Centrālā Statistikas Pārvalde (Central Statistical Bureau).
Any census has not been taken in Lebanon since 1932.
The foundation of the Republic of Macedonia followed the break up of the former Yugoslav Republic in 1991. The first population and housing census was taken in the summer 1994. The second census was taken in the autumn 2002. Both censuses were observed by international experts due to the sensitive issue regarding the ethnic distribution (Macedonian vs Albanian population).
The first census was taken in 1980. The second in 1997. The third was taken 1-14 August 2007.
The first census in the Netherlands was conducted in 1795, and the last in 1971. A law was produced on April 22 1879, saying that a census be conducted every ten years.
The census that was supposed to be conducted in 1981 was postponed and later cancelled. A call for privacy was responsible for the cancellation of any further census since 1991.
The census in New Zealand is carried out by Statistics New Zealand (Tatauranga Aotearoa), every five years. The last was on 7 March 2006. For the 2006 Census of New Zealand, respondents could choose to complete their census questionnaire online. See New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings.
Population censuses have been taken in Nigeria during colonial time in 1866, 1871, 1896, 1901, 1911, 1921 and 1952. The censuses covered only the southern part of the country except for the 1952 census which was country wide. It shall be noted that the censuses before 1921 were merely based on administrative estimates than on an actual enumeration.
Censuses during the independence were taken 1963, 1973, 1991 and 2006. The results from 1973 were highly disputed. The preliminary results for 2006 indicates a population of 140,000,000. 700,000 enumerators were engaged in this operation.
The two first male census was conducted during the 1660s and 1701. Later statistical censuses were held in 1769, 1815, 1835, 1845, and 1855. Norway’s first nominative, complete census was taken in 1801, when Norway still was ruled by the Oldenburg dynasty of Denmark-Norway. The scope of the census followed the de jure principle, so military persons should be included as well as foreigners if they were residents. The 1865, 1875 and 1900 censuses are digitized, and are made searchable on the internet. The census records are made public available when 100 years have passed. Since 1900, the census has been conducted every
