The Burmese census is an official count of the human population in

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

(Myanmar).

History

The earliest census on record in Burmese history was taken in 1359 in the Pinya Kingdom. The first nationwide census was taken in 1638, and it was followed by two other nationwide censuses in 1784 and 1803.

British colonial era

The first modern census was taken in 1872 in the

British colonial period The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

, as part of the

Census in British India Census in British India refers to the census of India prior to independence which was conducted periodically from 1865 to 1941. The censuses were primarily concerned with administration and faced numerous problems in their design and conduct ran ...

. It was carried out in 10-year intervals until 1941.

Post-independence era

In the post-independence area, the census has been conducted 3 times, in 1973, 1983, and

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

2014 Census

The last census was conducted by the

Ministry of Immigration and Population The Ministry of Immigration and Population (; abbreviated MIP) is an government agency of Myanmar which administers the immigration affairs, including its National Registration Card (NRC) system. History The Census Office was formed on 24 Fe ...

's Department of Population, and was funded by Western donors, at a cost of , and supervised by the

United Nations Population Fund The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is a United Nations System, UN agency aimed at improving reproductive health, reproductive and maternal health worldwide. Its work includes developing national healthcare strategies and protocols, incr ...

2024 Census

In March 2023, the SAC announced it would conduct a nationwide census between 1 and 15 October 2024, in preparation for the next Myanmar general election. Due to ongoing political instability in the wake of the

2021 Myanmar coup d'état A coup d'état in Myanmar began on the morning of 1 February 2021, when Elections in Myanmar, democratically elected members of the country's ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), were deposed by the Tatmadaw, Myanmar's milita ...

and limited recognition of the military junta, the UN denied allegations that it would support the planned census. In September 2024, the military leader of Myanmar

Min Aung Hlaing Min Aung Hlaing (born 3 July 1956) is a Burmese army general who has ruled Myanmar as the chairman of the State Administration Council, chairman of the State Administration Council (SAC) since seizing power in the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, Fe ...

announced that the main purpose of the 2024 census is to get voter lists for the 2025 general election. The current main opposition to Min Aung Hlaing, the National Unity Government advised caution when answering the questions on the census. The 2024 census doesnot include the data from regions controlled by ethnic armed forces and pro-democracy guerrillas. The preliminary census result showed the population to be 51.3 million, a decrease from 51.5 million in 2014.

References

{{Asia topic, Census in Demographics of Myanmar