Bulgaria conducts 17th population, housing census

Bulgaria conducts 17th population, housing census

SOFIA, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Bulgaria started on Tuesday its 17thpopulation and housing census which will last until the end ofFebruary, making it the first EU country to hold a population countin 2011.

It's the first time for Bulgaria to conduct the census with thehelp of the Internet in addition to the traditional way of homevisits by census officials.

Some 40 percent of the Bulgarians wanted to be counted on theInternet, while this rate was 20 percent to 25 percent in other EUcountries, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said.

More than 25,000 people completed the online questionnaire duringthe first 12 hours of the Internet census from midnight, and duringthe first 10 hours the number was 10,000, said NSI head MarianaKotseva.

The population census is the only source of accurate data onnumber of people by sex, age, education, literacy, occupation,religion, ethnic group not only in the country as a whole, but alsoin separate regions.

The 63 questions included in the census questionnaire concernage, education, labor status, marital status, residence, and housingconditions, but not property, income or taxes paid.

Bulgaria's population registered a record number of about 9million in 1985, but the figure was about a million fewer than in2001.