Free US Law Dictionary

Census

A census is the procedure of acquiring information about every member of a given population. This term is mostly used in connection with national 'population and door to door 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.