2

Our census bureau defines the national "population" as the number of people in the country on census day. This includes citizens, foreign students and workers, and immigrants who do not yet have citizenship. They do not count citizens living abroad, even on vacation.

They also count people in diplomatic or military service abroad. I assume (but can't find stated) that they do not count foreigners in the same roles in this country.

Some countries' official "population" includes citizens living abroad and does not include visitors. This would mean that some people are "double counted" in the world population while some are not counted at all.

Is there an international standard definition for national population?

| improve this question | |
  • 2
    But wait. 360,000 births and 151,600 deaths in the world daily produce much more inaccuracy than double-counted expats. – bytebuster for Long Usernames Dec 18 '15 at 7:14
  • The last census in 2011 in Germany lead to a reduction of the population number of over a million people. One reason for this miscount is that the previous method was to sum up the registred populations of all muncipialities. When people move to a different city, they register at their new place of residence but often don't bother to unregister at their previous one. So they counted for the population of two cities in the yearly reports of the federal bureau of statistics. – Philipp♦ Dec 18 '15 at 9:13
1

As with everything in international politics, there is no global standard.

But one thing which comes pretty close to an international standard is the European population and housing census regulation of 2008. Before this directive there were differences between how different EU countries counted their population, which lead to EU residents being counted double or not at all. This directive cleared up those differences to allow comparable population counts between different EU countries.

It defines "Population" as follows:

’population’ shall mean the national, regional and local population at its usual residence at the reference date.

’usual residence’ shall mean the place where a person normally spends the daily period of rest, regardless of temporary absences for purposes of recreation, holidays, visits to friends and relatives, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage.

the following persons alone shall be considered to be usual residents of the geographical area in question:

(i) those who have lived in their place of usual residence for a continuous period of at least 12 months before the reference date; or

(ii) those who arrived in their place of usual residence during the 12 months before the reference date with the intention of staying there for at least one year.

That means it counts all people who currently live within the borders of a state for at least a year or plan to stay for at least a year, regardless of their nationality and legal status.

People who are in a country on diplomatic or military mission would count as the population of that country when they are on an assignment of at least 12 month.

But this directive only applies to the EU. Internationally there are still large differences between who is considered a resident. Also, less developed countries often lack the bureaucratic infrastructure to do an accurate population count, so their population numbers are often just rough estimates.

| improve this answer | |
  • Thanks. I'm not even sure about "people in diplomatic or military service abroad". A media report says they fill out census forms, but it is not clear from the Canada census site whether that means they are included in the "population". – Keith McClary Dec 19 '15 at 20:12

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .