Historical data from Austria

Introduction

Below I will talk about historical data from Austria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Population census

In Austria (or more precisely in the Habsburg Empire) census taking has a long tradition. Initially, census predominantly served military and fiscal purposes. This has changed in the middel of the ninteenth century, when census became important for the administration of the state.

Before WWI

The census law from 1869 is often seen as the starting point of modern census taking in Austria (Bauer, undated). It had been decided that the census has to count in each community the total of native (absent and present) and foreign poulation. For the present native population a number of characteristics—such as age, sex, religion, marital status, occupation/activity—had to be collected. From 1869 on population censuses had been carried out in regular intervals. The number of variables had increased. In the following years populatioon census took place:

• 1869
• 1880
• 1890
• 1910

Between WWI and WWII

In the interwar period, four census had been conducted:

• 1920
• 1934
• 1939

After WWI

After WWII a new law providing regulation for a decennial population census had been decided and first census was conducted in 1951. (Building and housing censuses became subject of a separate law, but were always conducted together with the population census.) In this era of traditional population census, a total of six census had been conducted:

• 1951
• 1961
• 1971
• 1981
• 1991
• 2001

Over time programme had been enlarged. For instance, since 1961 information on commuting has been collected. Importantly, since 1971 the data has been processed and stored electronically.

Register-based census

In order to save cost, the Austrian Parliament decided in 2006 to switch to a so-called register-based census. Thus, there will be no more information collected from the citizens, but information on population is taken directly from already existing administrative registers. So far, there has been one register-based census in 2011. You can watch a short information video below:

The Central Population Register is the backbone of the register-based census. It is linked to a number of oher registers to gain information on individuals. The register-based census covers three main topics

Accessing census data

a new census law was established and This law only provided regulations for the population census. Building and housing censuses became subject of a separate law, but were always conducted together with the population census. I

on basis of a new census law (1950).

(1869, 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910). . In the 1890 census Hollerith equipment was used for the first time.

for each community the total of the For the present

population (i.e. ). For each community the present and the absent population was determined as well as the native population and foreigners.

Talk about population census data

Data from more census are available at IPUMS-International, You can donwload random samples of individual data from the following cenus: 1971, 1981, 1991, and 2001.

Agricultural census data

Talk about agricultural census data

Gemeindelexika

Talk about agricultural census data

Demographic data

Bewegung der Bevölkerung der im Reichsrathe vertretenen Königreiche und Länder im Jahre 1900.