TAKING OF CENSUS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 152, 26 December 1945, Page 4

TAKING OF CENSUS

PREPARATION OF MAPS

Filling in a form is all the average householder is called upon to do in the taking of a census, and that is a small part of all the preparation and work involved. One of the Departments of State, apart from the Census and Statistics Department, which had an important role to fill prior to the census taken in September last was the Department of Lands and Survey. The annual report of that Department records that as carl} as August, 1944, in anticipation of the census in September of this year, it was necessary to put in hand the preparation of enumerator and sub-enumerator maps for the purpose of the division of the Dominion into population mesh blocks.

The first step in this work was the preparation in duplicate of 89 enumerator maps on a scale of one mile to an inch of each of the counties and, on larger scales, some of the major cities and boroughs showing enumerator, county, borough, town district, and riding boundaries. These maps were prepared by the head office staff of the Department, the new one mile to an inch topographical series being used where available.

These enumerator maps were then forwarded to the Government Statistician, whose responsibility it was to subdivide each enumerator district into sub-enumerator districts for the subsequent preparation of sub-enumerator maps by each chief surveyor's office. This involved the preparation of 1325 sub-enumerator maps and the division of each district into population mesh blocks and the showing of local authority district boundaries, - electoral districts, urban areas, etc. This work was put in hand late m March and had to be available to the Government Statistician in the first week in August of this year. Approximately 40 per cent of the Lands and Survey office staff was diverted from other work to cope with this undertaking.