United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is a principal agency of the U. S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy; the Census Bureau is part of the U. S. Department of Commerce and its director is appointed by the President of the United States; the Census Bureau's primary mission is conducting the U. S. Census every ten years, which allocates the seats of the U. S. House of Representatives to the states based on their population; the Bureau's various censuses and surveys help allocate over $400 billion in federal funds every year and it helps states, local communities, businesses make informed decisions. The information provided by the census informs decisions on where to build and maintain schools, transportation infrastructure, police and fire departments. In addition to the decennial census, the Census Bureau continually conducts dozens of other censuses and surveys, including the American Community Survey, the U. S. Economic Census, the Current Population Survey.
Furthermore and foreign trade indicators released by the federal government contain data produced by the Census Bureau. Article One of the United States Constitution directs the population be enumerated at least once every ten years and the resulting counts used to set the number of members from each state in the House of Representatives and, by extension, in the Electoral College; the Census Bureau now conducts a full population count every 10 years in years ending with a zero and uses the term "decennial" to describe the operation. Between censuses, the Census Bureau makes population projections. In addition, Census data directly affects how more than $400 billion per year in federal and state funding is allocated to communities for neighborhood improvements, public health, education and more; the Census Bureau is mandated with fulfilling these obligations: the collecting of statistics about the nation, its people, economy. The Census Bureau's legal authority is codified in Title 13 of the United States Code.
The Census Bureau conducts surveys on behalf of various federal government and local government agencies on topics such as employment, health, consumer expenditures, housing. Within the bureau, these are known as "demographic surveys" and are conducted perpetually between and during decennial population counts; the Census Bureau conducts economic surveys of manufacturing, retail and other establishments and of domestic governments. Between 1790 and 1840, the census was taken by marshals of the judicial districts; the Census Act of 1840 established a central office. Several acts followed that revised and authorized new censuses at the 10-year intervals. In 1902, the temporary Census Office was moved under the Department of Interior, in 1903 it was renamed the Census Bureau under the new Department of Commerce and Labor; the department was intended to consolidate overlapping statistical agencies, but Census Bureau officials were hindered by their subordinate role in the department. An act in 1920 changed the date and authorized manufacturing censuses every two years and agriculture censuses every 10 years.
In 1929, a bill was passed mandating the House of Representatives be reapportioned based on the results of the 1930 Census. In 1954, various acts were codified into Title 13 of the US Code. By law, the Census Bureau must count everyone and submit state population totals to the U. S. President by December 31 of any year ending in a zero. States within the Union receive the results in the spring of the following year; the United States Census Bureau defines four statistical regions, with nine divisions. The Census Bureau regions are "widely used...for data collection and analysis". The Census Bureau definition is pervasive. Regional divisions used by the United States Census Bureau: Region 1: Northeast Division 1: New England Division 2: Mid-Atlantic Region 2: Midwest Division 3: East North Central Division 4: West North Central Region 3: South Division 5: South Atlantic Division 6: East South Central Division 7: West South Central Region 4: West Division 8: Mountain Division 9: Pacific Many federal, state and tribal governments use census data to: Decide the location of new housing and public facilities, Examine the demographic characteristics of communities and the US, Plan transportation systems and roadways, Determine quotas and creation of police and fire precincts, Create localized areas for elections, utilities, etc.
Gathers population information every 10 years The United States Census Bureau is committed to confidentiality, guarantees non-disclosure of any addresses or personal information related to individuals or establishments. Title 13 of the U. S. Code establishes penalties for the disclosure of this information. All Census employees must sign an affidavit of non-disclosure prior to employment; the Bureau cannot share responses, addresses or personal information with anyone including United States or foreign government
California Democratic Party
The California Democratic Party is the state branch of the United States Democratic Party in the state of California. The party is headquartered in Sacramento, is led by acting-Chair Alex Gallardo-Rooker. With 43.5% of the state's registered voters as of 2018, the Democratic Party has the highest number of registrants of any political party in California. Democrats enjoy supermajorities in both houses of the California State Legislature, holding 61 out of 80 seats in the California State Assembly and 29 out of 40 in the California State Senate. Democrats hold all 8 statewide executive branch offices, 46 of the state's 53 seats in the House of Representatives, both of California's seats in the United States Senate. Since the beginning of the 1850s, issues regarding slavery had split the California Democratic Party. By the 1853 general election campaign, large majorities of pro-slavery Democrats from Southern California, calling themselves the Chivalry, threatened to divide the state in half, should the state not accept slavery.
John Bigler, along with former State Senator and Lieutenant Governor David C. Broderick from the previous McDougall Administration, formed the Free Soil Democratic faction, modeled after the federal Free Soil Party that argued against the spread of slavery; the Democrats split into two camps, with both the Chivalry and Free Soilers nominating their own candidates for the 1853 election. By 1857, the party had split into the Anti-Lecompton factions. Lecompton members supported the Kansas Lecompton Constitution, a document explicitly allowing slavery into the territory, while Anti-Lecompton faction members were in opposition to slavery's expansion; the violence between supporting and opposition forces led to the period known as Bleeding Kansas. Splits in the Democratic Party, as well as the power vacuum created by the collapse of the Whig Party, helped facilitate the rise of the American Party both in state and federal politics. In particular, state voters voted Know-Nothings into the California State Legislature, elected J. Neely Johnson as governor in the 1855 general elections.
During the 1859 general elections, Lecompton Democrats voted for Milton Latham, who had lived in the American South, as their nominee for Governor. Anti-Lecomptons in turn selected John Currey as their nominee; the infant Republican Party, running in its first gubernatorial election, selected businessman Leland Stanford as its nominee. To make matters more complicated, during the campaign, Senator David C. Broderick, an Anti-Lecompton Democrat, was killed in a duel by slavery supporter and former state Supreme Court Justice David Terry on September 13; until the early 1880s the Republican Party held the state through the power and influence of railroad men. The Democratic Party responded by taking an anti freedom of attainment position. In 1894, Democrat James Budd was elected to the governorship, the Democratic Party attempted to make good on their promises to reform the booming railroad industry; the party began working with the state's railroad commission to create fair rates for passengers and to eliminate monopolies the railroad companies held over the state.
The main effort focused on making railroads public avenues of transportation similar to streets and roads. This measure passed and was a great victory for the Democrats. Budd was to be the last Democratic governor for thirty years; the struggle between the anti-monopolists and the railroad companies was, however, a key and defining issue for the Democratic Party for some time. Despite their relative lack of power during this period, the Democrats in California were still active in pursuing reform; the party crusaded for tariff reform. The party supported the large scale railroad strikes that sprung up statewide; the corruption of the time in both the railroad companies and the government led to a change in political dynamic. The people of the state moved away from both of the main parties and the Progressive Movement began. While the Progressives were successful in creating positive reform and chasing out corruption, the movement drained away many of the Democratic Party's members; as their movement ended, the Republicans won the governorship, but the Democratic Party had a distinct voter advantage.
In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president and the Power balance between the Republicans and the Democrats in California equalized. However, as Roosevelt's New Deal policies began to raise the nation out of the depression, Democratic strength mounted. Culbert Olson was elected to the governorship, but his term was rocky and both parties organized against him. Shortly thereafter, Earl Warren and the Republicans seized power again; the California Democratic Party needed a new strategy to regain power in the state. A strategy of reorganization and popular mobilization emerged and resulted in the creation of the California Democratic Council; the CDC as it became known was a way for members of the party from all levels of government to come together and as such the party became more unified. A new network of politically minded civilians and elected officials emerged and the party was stronger for it. Despite the fact that the council struggled in the cold war era, due to Republican strength and issues such as the Vietnam War, it still exists today.
By 1992, California was hurting more than most states from a national recession which had started in 1990, causing incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush's approval rating to tank within the state, giving an opening for the Democratic party to break through and become the largest party. Starting with the double digit victory of Bill Clinton, this became the f
San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends 1,200 kilometers through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, its motion is right-lateral strike-slip; the fault divides into three segments, each with different characteristics and a different degree of earthquake risk. The slip rate along the fault ranges from 20 to 35 mm /yr; the fault was identified in 1895 by Professor Andrew Lawson of UC Berkeley, who discovered the northern zone. It is described as having been named after San Andreas Lake, a small body of water, formed in a valley between the two plates. However, according to some of his reports from 1895 and 1908, Lawson named it after the surrounding San Andreas Valley. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Lawson concluded that the fault extended all the way into southern California. In 1953, geologist Thomas Dibblee concluded that hundreds of miles of lateral movement could occur along the fault. A project called the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth near Parkfield, Monterey County, was drilled through the fault during 2004 – 2007 to collect material and make physical and chemical observations to better understand fault behavior.
The northern segment of the fault runs from Hollister, through the Santa Cruz Mountains, epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake up the San Francisco Peninsula, where it was first identified by Professor Lawson in 1895 offshore at Daly City near Mussel Rock. This is the approximate location of the epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake; the fault returns onshore at Bolinas Lagoon just north of Stinson Beach in Marin County. It returns underwater through the linear trough of Tomales Bay which separates the Point Reyes Peninsula from the mainland, runs just east of Bodega Head through Bodega Bay and back underwater, returning onshore at Fort Ross. From Fort Ross, the northern segment continues overland, forming in part a linear valley through which the Gualala River flows, it goes back offshore at Point Arena. After that, it runs underwater along the coast until it nears Cape Mendocino, where it begins to bend to the west, terminating at the Mendocino Triple Junction; the central segment of the San Andreas Fault runs in a northwestern direction from Parkfield to Hollister.
While the southern section of the fault and the parts through Parkfield experience earthquakes, the rest of the central section of the fault exhibits a phenomenon called aseismic creep, where the fault slips continuously without causing earthquakes. The southern segment begins near California. Box Canyon, near the Salton Sea, contains upturned strata associated with that section of the fault; the fault runs along the southern base of the San Bernardino Mountains, crosses through the Cajon Pass and continues northwest along the northern base of the San Gabriel Mountains. These mountains are a result of movement along the San Andreas Fault and are called the Transverse Range. In Palmdale, a portion of the fault is examined at a roadcut for the Antelope Valley Freeway; the fault continues northwest alongside the Elizabeth Lake Road to the town of Elizabeth Lake. As it passes the towns of Gorman, Tejon Pass and Frazier Park, the fault begins to bend northward, forming the "Big Bend"; this restraining bend is thought to be where the fault locks up in Southern California, with an earthquake-recurrence interval of 140–160 years.
Northwest of Frazier Park, the fault runs through the Carrizo Plain, a long, treeless plain where much of the fault is plainly visible. The Elkhorn Scarp defines the fault trace along much of its length within the plain; the southern segment, which stretches from Parkfield in Monterey County all the way to the Salton Sea, is capable of an 8.1-magnitude earthquake. At its closest, this fault passes about 35 miles to the northeast of Los Angeles; such a large earthquake on this southern segment would kill thousands of people in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and surrounding areas, cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. The Pacific Plate, to the west of the fault, is moving in a northwest direction while the North American Plate to the east is moving toward the southwest, but southeast under the influence of plate tectonics; the rate of slippage averages about 33 to 37 millimeters a year across California. The southwestward motion of the North American Plate towards the Pacific is creating compressional forces along the eastern side of the fault.
The effect is expressed as the Coast Ranges. The northwest movement of the Pacific Plate is creating significant compressional forces which are pronounced where the North American Plate has forced the San Andreas to jog westward; this has led to the formation of the Transverse Ranges in Southern California, to a lesser but still significant extent, the Santa Cruz Mountains. Studies of the relative motions of the Pacific and North American plates have shown that only about 75 percent of the motion can be accounted for in the movements of the San Andreas and its various branch faults; the rest of the motion has been found in an area east of the Sierra Nevada mountains called the Walker Lane or Eastern California Shear Zone. The reason for this is not clear. Several hypotheses have been offered and research is ongoing. One hypothesis – which gained interest following the Landers earthquake in 1992 – suggests the plate boundary may be shifting eastward aw
Bombay Beach (film)
Bombay Beach is a 2011 documentary film directed and produced by Israeli filmmaker Alma Har'el. The film was nominated for an Independent Spirit "Truer than Fiction" Award, won "Best Feature Documentary" at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, has been taught in several universities including Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab and Film Center as a genre redefining work. Taking place in the Salton Sea, a rusting relic of a failed 1950s development boom, Bombay Beach is a dreamlike poem that sets three personal stories to a stylized melding of observational documentary and choreographed dance to music specially composed for the film by Zach Condon of the band Beirut, songs by Bob Dylan. Filmmaker Terry Gilliam called the film, "A beautiful and very moving film about the American Dream on the edge of a desert sea." The film tells the story of three protagonists: Benny Parrish, a young boy diagnosed with bipolar disorder whose troubled soul and vivid imagination create both suffering and joy for him and his complex and loving family.
"CeeJay" Cedric Thompson, a black teenager and aspiring football player who has taken refuge in Bombay Beach hoping to avoid the same fate of his cousin, murdered by a gang of youths in Los Angeles. And that of Red, an ancient survivor, once an oil field worker, living on the fumes of whiskey, cigarettes and an irrepressible love of life. Together they make up a triptych of American manhood in its decisive moments, populating the Salton Sea's land of thwarted opportunity; the New York Times writes, “ feels like a fever dream about an alternate universe. Suffused with a sense of wonder, it hovers, dancing inside its own ethereal bubble.”Har’el explains about the film, “This film can only serve to show glimpses into some of the larger issues one can pick out from these people’s lives and the way in which they live their lives in this particular place. All these things that can be perceived as wrong or right, or bad or good, all reside together, side by side; this is the human experience of life and that’s what I wanted to illustrate more than anything, how things co-exist, all the wrongs and the rights together, the love and the violence, the broken dream and the persistence of dreams.
Though the dream is broken, you can still see the people”From Salon: “You either like this kind of ambitious, borderless experiment or you don’t, I think it’s magical and tragic. Maybe it took a foreign-born Jewish filmmaker to make a movie that seems so positively biblical about the current conditions of America.” Bombay Beach premiered at the Panorama Section of the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival and received a 75% positive rating on Rottentomatoes, with 36 reviews. Filmanzeiger writes, “This documentary turns out to be a strikingly great, strong visual portrait of people at the literal edge of all social margins of Western societies. In the middle of a film festival of 385 films, with Alma Har'el's "Bombay Beach" there's a cinematic gem, whose charisma and sustainability makes us forget most of the Berlinale this year and in recent years completely.” “Bombay Beach” continued to receive critical praise in film festivals around the world, culminating in the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won “Best Documentary Feature”.
From the Associated Press, “Arguably the hit of the festival, Alma Har'el's lyrical debut was the unanimous jury choice Many fictional films try to portray dignity in rural decay, but the authentically poetic "Bombay Beach" is the real deal."Salon wrote, saying “Bombay Beach feels infused with tremendous compassion, paints a half-accidental portrait of life near the bottom of the recessionary pyramid.” Village Voice, called it a, “Hybrid doc knockout", while Time Out NY claimed, “The movie upends all the usual nonfiction tropes.” The Guardian described the movie as “An eerily compelling documentary about lost souls in a lost place.”Bombay Beach was promoted by Focus Features in the US and Dogwoof in the UK, has been broadcast widely. 2011 Woodstock Film Festival Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin Tribeca Film Festival Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival Camden International Film Festival Edinburgh International Film Festival Guanajuato International Film Festival Winner - Best Documentary - Tribeca Film Festival Nominated - Independent Spirit "Truer than Fiction" award Winner - Best Editing - Woodstock Film Festival Winner - Emerging Cinematic Vision - Camden International Film Festival Nominated - Cinema Eye Honors "Best Film Debut" and "Best Cinematography" - Winner Special Mention Jury Award - Sheffield Doc/Fest - Winner, Best Documentary- Guanajuato International Film Festival Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea, 2006 documentary film Bombay Beach on IMDb Bombay Beach Official Website Alma Har'el Official Website Holden, Stephen.
"Last Resort Remains an Oasis of Dreams". New York Times. Retrieved August 30, 2012
Salton Sea
The Salton Sea is a shallow, endorheic rift lake located directly on the San Andreas Fault, predominantly in the U. S. state of California's Imperial and Coachella valleys. The lake occupies the lowest elevations of the Salton Sink in the Colorado Desert of Imperial and Riverside counties in Southern California, its surface is 236.0 ft below sea level as of January 2018. The deepest point of the sea is 5 ft higher than the lowest point of Death Valley; the sea is fed by the New and Alamo Rivers, as well as agricultural runoff, drainage systems, creeks. Over millions of years, the Colorado River has flowed into the Imperial Valley and deposited soil, building up the terrain and changing the course of the river. For thousands of years, the river has alternately flowed into and out of the valley, alternately creating a freshwater lake, an saline lake, a dry desert basin, depending on river flows and the balance between inflow and evaporative loss; the cycle of filling has repeated many times. The latest natural cycle occurred around 1600–1700 as remembered by Native Americans who talked with the first European settlers.
Fish traps still exist at many locations, the Native Americans evidently moved the traps depending upon the cycle. The most recent inflow of water from the now controlled Colorado River was accidentally created by the engineers of the California Development Company in 1905. In an effort to increase water flow into the area for farming, irrigation canals were dug from the Colorado River into the valley; the canals suffered silt buildup, so a cut was made in the bank of the Colorado River to further increase the water flow. The resulting outflow overwhelmed the engineered canal near Yuma and the river flowed into the Salton Basin for two years, filling the historic dry lake bed and creating the modern sea, before repairs were completed. While it varies in dimensions and area with fluctuations in agricultural runoff and rainfall, the Salton Sea is about 15 by 35 miles. With an estimated surface area of 343 square miles or 350 square miles, the Salton Sea is the largest lake in California; the average annual inflow is less than 1.2 million acre⋅ft, enough to maintain a maximum depth of 43 feet and a total volume of about 6 million acre⋅ft.
However, due to changes in water apportionments agreed upon for the Colorado River under the Quantification Settlement Agreement of 2003, the overall water level of the sea is expected to decrease between 2013 and 2021. The lake's salinity, about 56 grams per litre, is greater than that of the Pacific Ocean, but less than that of the Great Salt Lake; the concentration has been increasing at a rate of about 3% per year. About 4 million short tons of salt are deposited in the valley each year; the area was once part of a vast inland sea. Geologists estimate that for three million years, at least through all the years of the Pleistocene glacial age, a large delta was deposited by the Colorado River in the southern region of the Imperial Valley; the delta reached the western shore of the Gulf of California, creating a barrier that separated the area of the Salton Sea from the northern reaches of the Gulf. Were it not for this barrier, the entire Salton Sink along with the Imperial Valley would be submerged as the Gulf would extend as far north as Indio.
Since the exclusion of the ocean, the Salton Basin has over the ages been alternately a freshwater lake, an saline endorheic lake, a dry desert basin, depending on river flows and the balance between inflow and evaporative loss. A lake exists only during times it is replenished by the rivers and rainfall, a cycle that has repeated many times over hundreds of thousands of years cycling every 400 to 500 years. Evidence that the basin was occupied periodically by multiple lakes includes wave-cut shorelines at various elevations preserved on the hillsides of the east and west margins of the present lake, the Salton Sea; these indicate that the basin was occupied intermittently as as a few hundred years ago. The last of the Pleistocene lakes to occupy the basin was Lake Cahuilla periodically identified on older maps as Lake LeConte or the Blake Sea, after American professor and geologist William Phipps Blake. Throughout the Spanish period of California's history, the area was referred to as the "Colorado Desert" after the Colorado River.
In a railroad survey completed in 1855, it was called "the Valley of the Ancient Lake". On several old maps from the Library of Congress, it has been found labeled "Cahuilla Valley" and "Cabazon Valley". "Salt Creek" first appeared on a map in 1867 and "Salton Station" is on a railroad map from 1900, although this place had been there as a rail stop since the late 1870s. Until the advent of the modern sea, the Salton Sink was the site of a major salt-mining operation. In 1900, the California Development Company began construction of irrigation canals to divert water from the Colorado River into the Salton Sink, a dry lake bed. After construction of these irrigation canals, the Salton Sink became fertile for a time, allowing farmers to plant crops. Within two years, the Imperial Canal became filled with silt from the Colorado River. Engineers tried to alleviate the blockages to no avail. In 1905, heavy rainfall and snowmelt caused the Colorado River to swell, overrunning a set of headgates for the Alamo Canal.
The resulting
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, defined by the federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most identify, indicate whether or not they are of Hispanic or Latino origin. The racial categories represent a social-political construct for the race or races that respondents consider themselves to be and, "generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country." OMB defines the concept of race as outlined for the US Census as not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference." The race categories include both national-origin groups. Race and ethnicity are considered separate and distinct identities, with Hispanic or Latino origin asked as a separate question. Thus, in addition to their race or races, all respondents are categorized by membership in one of two ethnic categories, which are "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino".
However, the practice of separating "race" and "ethnicity" as different categories has been criticized both by the American Anthropological Association and members of US Commission on Civil Rights. In 1997, OMB issued a Federal Register notice regarding revisions to the standards for the classification of federal data on race and ethnicity. OMB developed race and ethnic standards in order to provide "consistent data on race and ethnicity throughout the Federal Government; the development of the data standards stem in large measure from new responsibilities to enforce civil rights laws." Among the changes, OMB issued the instruction to "mark one or more races" after noting evidence of increasing numbers of interracial children and wanting to capture the diversity in a measurable way and having received requests by people who wanted to be able to acknowledge their or their children's full ancestry rather than identifying with only one group. Prior to this decision, the Census and other government data collections asked people to report only one race.
The OMB states, "many federal programs are put into effect based on the race data obtained from the decennial census. Race data are critical for the basic research behind many policy decisions. States require these data to meet legislative redistricting requirements; the data are needed to monitor compliance with the Voting Rights Act by local jurisdictions". "Data on ethnic groups are important for putting into effect a number of federal statutes. Data on Ethnic Groups are needed by local governments to run programs and meet legislative requirements." The 1790 United States Census was the first census in the history of the United States. The population of the United States was recorded as 3,929,214 as of Census Day, August 2, 1790, as mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution and applicable laws."The law required that every household be visited, that completed census schedules be posted in'two of the most public places within, there to remain for the inspection of all concerned...' and that'the aggregate amount of each description of persons' for every district be transmitted to the president."
This law along with U. S. marshals were responsible for governing the census. One third of the original census data has been lost or destroyed since documentation; the data was lost in 1790–1830 time period and included data from: Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia. Census data included the name of the head of the family and categorized inhabitants as follows: free white males at least 16 years of age, free white males under 16 years of age, free white females, all other free persons, slaves. Thomas Jefferson the Secretary of State, directed marshals to collect data from all thirteen states, from the Southwest Territory; the census was not conducted in Vermont until 1791, after that state's admission to the Union as the 14th state on March 4 of that year. There was some doubt surrounding the numbers, President George Washington and Thomas Jefferson maintained the population was undercounted; the potential reasons Washington and Jefferson may have thought this could be refusal to participate, poor public transportation and roads, spread out population, restraints of current technology.
No microdata from the 1790 population census is available, but aggregate data for small areas and their compatible cartographic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System. In 1800 and 1810, the age question regarding free white males was more detailed; the 1820
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. The term is used in connection with national population and housing censuses; the United Nations defines the essential features of population and housing censuses as "individual enumeration, universality within a defined territory and defined periodicity", recommends that population censuses be taken at least every 10 years. United Nations recommendations cover census topics to be collected, official definitions and other useful information to co-ordinate international practice; the word is of Latin origin: during the Roman Republic, the census was a list that kept track of all adult males fit for military service. The modern census is essential to international comparisons of any kind of statistics, censuses collect data on many attributes of a population, not just how many people there are. Censuses began as the only method of collecting national demographic data, are now part of a larger system of different surveys.
Although population estimates remain an important function of a census, including the geographic distribution of the population, statistics can be produced about combinations of attributes e.g. education by age and sex in different regions. Current administrative data systems allow for other approaches to enumeration with the same level of detail but raise concerns about privacy and the possibility of biasing estimates. A census can be contrasted with sampling in which information is obtained only from a subset of a population. Modern census data are used for research, business marketing, planning, as a baseline for designing sample surveys by providing a sampling frame such as an address register. Census counts are necessary to adjust samples to be representative of a population by weighting them as is common in opinion polling. Stratification requires knowledge of the relative sizes of different population strata which can be derived from census enumerations. In some countries, the census provides the official counts used to apportion the number of elected representatives to regions.
In many cases, a chosen random sample can provide more accurate information than attempts to get a population census. A census is construed as the opposite of a sample as its intent is to count everyone in a population rather than a fraction. However, population censuses rely on a sampling frame to count the population; this is the only way to be sure that everyone has been included as otherwise those not responding would not be followed up on and individuals could be missed. The fundamental premise of a census is that the population is not known and a new estimate is to be made by the analysis of primary data; the use of a sampling frame is counterintuitive as it suggests that the population size is known. However, a census is used to collect attribute data on the individuals in the nation; this process of sampling marks the difference between historical census, a house to house process or the product of an imperial decree, the modern statistical project. The sampling frame used by census is always an address register.
Thus it is not known how many people there are in each household. Depending on the mode of enumeration, a form is sent to the householder, an enumerator calls, or administrative records for the dwelling are accessed; as a preliminary to the dispatch of forms, census workers will check any address problems on the ground. While it may seem straightforward to use the postal service file for this purpose, this can be out of date and some dwellings may contain a number of independent households. A particular problem is what are termed'communal establishments' which category includes student residences, religious orders, homes for the elderly, people in prisons etc; as these are not enumerated by a single householder, they are treated differently and visited by special teams of census workers to ensure they are classified appropriately. Individuals are counted within households and information is collected about the household structure and the housing. For this reason international documents refer to censuses of housing.
The census response is made by a household, indicating details of individuals resident there. An important aspect of census enumerations is determining which individuals can be counted from which cannot be counted. Broadly, three definitions can be used: de facto residence; this is important to consider individuals who have temporary addresses. Every person should be identified uniquely as resident in one place but where they happen to be on Census Day, their de facto residence, may not be the best place to count them. Where an individual uses services may be more useful and this is at their usual, or de jure, residence. An individual may be represented at a permanent address a family home for students or long term migrants, it is necessary to have a precise definition of residence to decide whether visitors to a country should be included in the population count. This is becoming more important as students travel abroad for education for a period of several years. Other groups causing problems of enumeration are new born babies, people away on holiday, people moving home around census day, people without a fixed address.
People having second homes because of working in another part of the country or retaining a holiday cottage are dif
United States
California
