Archive
Background Information
- 1. Objectives
- 2. Overall design
- 3. Census legislation
- 4. Data collection method
- 5. Timing
- 6. Population coverage
- 7. Data topics
Overall design
All population censuses conducted since 1981 comprised a complete enumeration of all persons on their basic characteristics such as age and sex and a large sample on the detailed characteristics of households and persons. The 2011 Population Census adopted the same approach. Short form questionnaire was used to enumerate about nine-tenths of households in Hong Kong on their basic characteristics (e.g. age and sex) while long form questionnaire was used to enumerate the remaining one-tenth households on a broad range of socio-economic characteristics of household members.
A scientific sampling scheme was used to select households for detailed enquiry. Through the use of appropriate computation methods, statistics on the size and characteristics of the population can be compiled by combining the data obtained from the simple enumeration and detailed enquiry.