Inquiries by local officials in connexion with measures of taxation,
such as the hearth-tax in France, were instituted in continental Europe
as early as the 14th century; but as the basis of an estimate of
population they were intrinsically untrustworthy. Going outside Europe,
an extreme instance of the results of combining a census with more
definite administrative objects may be found in the census of China in
1711, when the population enumerated in connexion with a poll-tax and
liability to military service, was returned as 28 millions; but forty
years later, when the question was that of the measures for the relief
of widespread distress, the corresponding total rose to 103 millions!
The notion of obtaining a periodical record of population and its
movement, dissociated from fiscal or other liabilities, originated, as
stated above, in Sweden, where, in 1686, the birth and death registers,
till then kept voluntarily by the parish clergy, were made compulsory
and general, the results for each year being communicated to a central
office. A census, as a special undertaking, was not, however, carried
out in that country until 1749. The example of Sweden was followed in
the next year by Finland, and twenty years later, by Norway, where the
parish register was an existing institution, as in the neighbouring
state. Several other countries followed suit in the course of the 18th
century, though the results were either partial or inaccurate. Amongst
them was Spain, though here a trustworthy census was not obtained until
1857, or perhaps 1887. Some of the small states of Italy, too, recorded
their population in the middle of the above century, but the first
general census of that country took place in 1861, after its
unification. In Austria, a census was taken in 1754 by the parish
clergy, concurrently with the civil authorities and the military
commandants. Hungary was in part enumerated thirty years later. The
starting-point of the modern census, however, in either part of the dual
monarchy, was not until 1857. Speaking generally, most of the principal
countries began the current series of their censuses between 1825 and
1860. The German empire has taken its census quinquennially since its
foundation, but long before 1871 a census at short intervals used to be
taken in all the states of the Zollverein, for the purpose of
ascertaining the contribution to the federal revenue, the amount of
which was revisable every three years. The last great country to enter
the census field was Russia. From 1721, what are known as revisions of
the population were periodically carried out, for military, fiscal and
police purposes; but these were conducted by local officials without
central direction or systematic organization. In 1897 a general census
was taken as synchronously throughout the empire as was found possible.
It embraced a population second to that of India alone, as China,
probably the most populous country in the world, has not yet been
subjected to this test. The inquiry was made in great detail, under
central control, and on a plan sufficiently elastic to suit the
requirements of so varied a country and population. As in India, the
schedules had to be issued in an unusual number of languages, and were
dealt with locally in the earlier stages of tabulation. The principal
regions of which the population is still a matter of mere conjecture are
the Turkish empire, Persia, Afghanistan, China and the Indo-Chinese
peninsula, in Asia, nearly nine-tenths of Africa, and a considerable
portion of South America. (J. A. B.)