Iraq to conduct nationwide population census in November
Part of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Photo: Getty Images
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The President of the Iraqi Society for Statistical Sciences, Mahdi Al-Alaq, said that Iraq is scheduled to finish its much-anticipated general population census in November.
Al-Alaq elaborated that the census will be conducted using computerized means at a record time, according to Rudaw News.
The Iraqi official explained that there is a significant change in the work technique, which now uses tablets and data centers instead of paper and more conventional ways for the first time.
This will be the country’s first population count since 1997 and the first to include the governorates of the Kurdistan region of Iraq since 1987.
Al-Alaq described the census as important, considering how much Iraq’s population has changed since then.
The coronavirus outbreak forced a postponement of a census scheduled for 2020.
The Iraqi Ministry of Planning revealed an estimation of the Iraqi population in 2023, indicating that it exceeded 43 million.
The Planning Ministry mentioned last July that it is working to conduct a national census in 2024 to serve development plans by setting up a comprehensive database of the population in Iraq.
According to the last national census carried out in 1997, during the era of the late President Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s population at that time was 19 million.
According to estimations, the population in the Kurdistan region of Iraq was around three million people at that time.