Census in Norway

On February 1, 1801, the first nominative lists of the whole population, in principle, counting all men and women, were gathered in the Kingdom of Denmark, including Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Norway.

Earlier censuses taken in the 1660s and in 1701 had only included men or were limited to the production of statistics and left few nominative census manuscripts, as was the case in 1769. Unfortunately, the new and impoverished Norwegian state reverted to the numeric census from 1815 to 1855, but decennial nominative censuses have been taken since 1865. Therefore, a high proportion of 19th and 20th century Norwegians have been listed by name in at least one census.

Another reason for avoiding census taking was more political, involving local versus centralized control over the population. In a more or less feudal society, the local leaders knew most of their subjects, making it necessary for central bureaucracies to work with them when levying taxes or conscripting soldiers. Taking a census meant enabling the central authorities to work more directly with the population at the household or individual level, thereby passing a considerable amount of control and power from local to central authorities.

Denmark pioneered by taking its last questionnaire-based census in 1970. It stopped taking censuses entirely in 1981 after basing the last one on registers only. Finland followed the suit with a register-based census in 1990, although it has decided to continue the questionnaire-based practice. Norway proceeded more cautiously, sending out housing and individual forms to a sample of the population in 1990. The density of the sample depended on the number of inhabitants in each municipality. Statistics Norway organized its last questionnaire-based census in 2001, with forms being used only for questions about the domicile.4 From a continuously updated population register and a number of other registers with unique identification numbers, a linked, cross-sectional data file (like a census), in principle, can be constructed as often as needed—weekly or annually. Claiming that the 1981 Danish census was the first in the world based on registers is, however, only true if we add register and computer-based. Basing census taking on longitudinal registers is nothing new. From the beginning of Swedish census taking in 1860 until 1945, the cross-sectional lists of the entire Swedish population were created every decade by parish priests on the basis of catechismal records (husforhorslangder).