census

Everyday

1. An official count of all the people in a country, with facts such as their ages and jobs. tree →
2. Any official count, for example of animals or birds (a bird census). tree →

In the lessons

In maths and geography: census data shows how many people live in a place; used in graphs and tables. In history: censuses help find families. Phrase: take a census, census data.

Examples

• The government takes a census every ten years. tree →
• The census showed the town had grown. tree →
• We made a graph of census data in maths. tree →
• Volunteers took a census of the frogs in the pond. tree →
• The census counts everyone living in the country. tree →
• Our class did a census of pets: 12 dogs and 9 cats. tree →

Note

Plural: censuses. Not the same as «consensus» (agreement) or «senses». Census numbers are counts, so they are whole numbers.