The Costa Rica 2011 Census was undertaken by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (''Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos'' (INEC)) in Costa Rica. The semi-autonomous government body, INEC, was created by Census Law No. 7839 on 4 November 1998.

The census

The

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

took place between Monday, 30 May 2011 and Friday, 3 June 2011 when 35,000 enumerators, mostly teachers, visited an estimated 1,300,000 households to count a population estimated before the census at about 4,650,000 individuals (the census itself counted 4,301,712 people).Semana del Censo Nacional: INEC pide a la población responder el Censo
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos, Costa Rica, 2011-05-31.
INSIDECOSTARICA, 2011-05-27. The census questionnaire inquired about housing, including the physical and structural characteristics of the house, whether it was owned or rented, and if basic services (water, electricity) were present. The census form also asked about equipment in the house: telephone (mobile and fixed), vehicles, and information technology and communication (radio, television, cable or satellite, computer and internet). Questions concerning the inhabitants asked about the number of people living in the

household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is i ...

, number of households per housing unit, who was the head of the household, family relations between people living in the house, sex, age, and place of birth. Other questions inquired about disabilities and ethnic identification, among other things. In Costa Rica, tourists and temporary visitors are not counted, but foreigners who have lived there for six months are included. Furthermore, participation is voluntary so residents can refuse to take part and enumerators will accept this response.

Primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

teachers have conducted the census since the 1950s. About 35,000 were needed in 2011 but not all teachers wanted to participate. The numbers were made up by students and statistics undergraduates from the

University of Costa Rica The University of Costa Rica (Spanish: ''Universidad de Costa Rica,'' abbreviated UCR) is a public university in the Republic of Costa Rica, in Central America. Its main campus, Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio, is located in San Pedro M ...

, earning ₡50,000 ($100) for a week's work. The census cost $3.6 million and preliminary results of the count were published in December 2011. It counted 4,301,712 people, an increase of 12.9 percent since the 2000 census.Costa Rica births decreasing
''The Tico Times'', 2011-12-23

Results by canton

References

External links

View the census form — English version

View the census form — Spanish version

Download the Spanish version as PDF file
— Scribd account required (free)
National Institute of Statistics and Census of Costa Rica

Census supplement of ''La Nación'' newspaper
{{in lang, es Censuses in Costa Rica 2011 in Costa Rica 2011 censuses