Population and housing censuses

Population and housing censuses are the foundation of statistical systems, providing benchmarks of a country's population and housing stock, and baseline information for the production of other statistics.

We facilitate international exchange of ideas on emerging issues in census methodology, technology and management, and coordinate work on innovative approaches for improving efficiency in the face of ever-increasing concerns about costs, data quality, respondent burden and privacy raised by traditional censuses.

With the help of our Steering Group on Population and Housing Censuses we promote the preparation and implementation of the CES Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, and support UNECE member States in their preparations for conducting censuses. Our 13 task forces, established by CES, are developing the CES Census Recommendations for 2030 in our biggest ever project of this kind.