Background of the African Census Analysis Project (ACAP)

Introduction
Brief History of Census-Taking in Africa
Availability of the Census
African Census Analysis Project
The Future of ACAP

<< Introduction

Brief History of Census-Taking in Africa

Egypt had a very long history of census-taking. Some sources indicate counts in Egypt dating back to 4000 BC. Few of these records have survived (Domschke and Goyer 1986). And, while few empirical records survive, the practice of population counting was known to African societies before their colonial encounters with Arabs and Europeans. Similarly, the motives behind the headcounts were not new. Counts were historically carried out for military and taxation purposes at such times as the chiefs deemed necessary. The well-known customary counting procedure involved the heads of families dropping articles such as grains of cereal, beads, or cowries into receptacles in function of the number of their dependents (Owusu 1968). Different items (or colors) were used for males and females. However, traditionally, African societies avoided direct counting of human beings, and never developed a system of continuous census-taking (Zaslavsky 1973: 52–57).

European colonial powers conducted sporadic counts of colonists and even the total population in certain trading centers and colonies in Africa. For example, the British Parliamentary Papers (PP) contains a series of annual enumerations of Sierra Leone in the first half of the nineteenth century. These enumerations are suggestive of a total population count, but provide very little information on the composition or age structure of the population. The published figures indicate that generally only the origin of the population was obtained. The official comments on the accuracy of the censuses generally refer to the censuses as unconvincing and informal estimates (Kuczynski 1953; Zuberi and Khalifani 1999; Khalfani et al. 2005).

Kuczynski's three-volume work Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire provides a comprehensive evaluation of these data collected within the British Colonial Empire prior to 1950. This effort was followed by the publication in 1977 and 1981 of the proceedings of two seminars held in the Centre of African Study at the University of Edinburgh, published under the titles African Historical Demography and African Historical Demography Volume II. Dennis D. Cordell and Joel W. Gregory’s African Population and Capitalism: Historical Perspectives (1987), Bruce Fetter's Demography from Scanty Evidence: Central Africa in the Colonial Era (1990), and Zuberi’s Swing Low Sweet Chariot: The Mortality Cost of Colonizing Liberia (1995) represent efforts to document and in some cases analyze these rare historical data. In Senegal, Saliou Mbaye's Sources de l’histoire démographique des pays du Sahel conservées dans les archives (1986) suggests that we can know more about African historical population counts during Africa’s colonial period.

The modern census in Africa acquired prominence in the latter half of the twentieth century during the post-independence era. Most countries have conducted at least three censuses since independence (see Tables 1 and 2 below). The former French colonies lagged behind the rest of Africa in the development of census enumerations of the population; however, by the mid 1970s almost every African nation had conducted a census enumeration. During this post-independence period, well over 200 census enumerations have occurred. Of this total number of censuses enumerations completed only a few have survived.

The universally used unit of enumeration, even implicitly in historical population listings, has been the household (van de Walle 2006). This use of the household as the elementary unit of enumeration is associated with two basic concepts: de jure and de facto populations. In the latter case, individuals are enumerated at the place where they are actually found on the census night as opposed to where they usually reside. As van de Walle (2006) suggests, in the beginning most French-speaking countries in Africa adopted the de jure approach while most English-speaking countries adopted the de facto mode of enumeration. As the concept of household has become more rigorously defined all censuses have tended to collect data on a de facto basis.

Table 1: Inventory of African censuses published in English, Portuguese, and Swahili

Source: From Central Statistical Office websites; http://www.acap.upenn.edu/Data/navigator/; http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/cendates/cenafric.html; Domschke and Goyer 1986; Groupe de démographie africaine 1988; United Nations 1992 (red highlighted indicates part of ACAP data bank). * indicates that the census was planned for the date indicated.

Table 2: Inventory of African censuses published in French

Source: From Central Statistical Office websites; http://www.acap.upenn.edu/Data/navigator/; http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/cendates/cenafric.html; Domschke and Goyer 1986; Groupe de démographie africaine 1988; United Nations 1992 (red highlighted indicates part of ACAP data bank). * indicates that the census was planned for the date indicated.

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