BiH has published 13 censuses in 400 years, waiting for the 14th for three years

If Bosnia and Herzegovina does not publish the census by July 1 this year, the census will fail, meaning the data will not be valid. For the third year now, the relevant statistical agencies in BiH cannot agree on the methodology for data processing, and politics is heavily involved in the entire process, as experts warn, writes the Bosnian news agency Patria.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has published a total of 13 censuses in the last 400 years, but not the last one. According to data from the Federal Institute for Statistics, the oldest census of Bosnia and Herzegovina dates back to the very beginning of the seventeenth century and was conducted during Turkish rule over the Balkan countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina. These censuses – defters – were done by sanjaks, the administrative units of the time. The defters relating to Bosnia and Herzegovina are located in the State Archives of the Republic of Turkey, sorted and archived in various document series, with most of them coded as Tapu defters.

In the 1950s, Turkey delivered several dozen of these censuses from the State Archives of the Republic of Turkey to BiH, and this act represented a major step forward in studying the past of the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The defters that referred to all parts of the former Yugoslavia were stored in the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo. During the aggressive shelling of Sarajevo on May 16 and 17, 1992, all the defters were completely burned.

Censuses during the Austro-Hungarian period

With the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1878, new censuses followed.

The first census in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian authorities was conducted in 1879. According to the census, on an area of 51,246 km² in 1879, 1,158,440 inhabitants lived in BiH, 550,651 were female, and 607,789 were male.

The second census in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian authorities was conducted in 1885. According to the census, on an area of 51,246 km² in 1885, 1,336,091 inhabitants lived in BiH, 631,066 were female, and 703,025 were male.

The next census in Bosnia and Herzegovina was conducted in 1895. In that year, 1,568,092 inhabitants lived in BiH.

The last census under Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina was conducted in 1910. At that time, 1,898,044 inhabitants lived in BiH.

Censuses after World War I

After the end of World War I in 1918, Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Montenegro, became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which was officially named the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929.

In 1921, a census was conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the census, on an area of 51,200 km² in 1921, 1,890,440 inhabitants lived in BiH.

According to the census conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1931, on an area of 51,564 km², 2,323,555 inhabitants lived.

World War II brought changes to the political system of Yugoslavia, and in 1948, when the census was conducted, its official name was the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. According to this census, on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, covering an area of 51,200 km², 2,564,308 inhabitants lived. The number of female inhabitants was 1,327,376, and male inhabitants was 1,236,932.

The second census of the FPRY was published on March 31, 1953. The administrative organization in Bosnia and Herzegovina was almost identical to that of 1948, except that the Odžak district was abolished and merged into the Modriča district. In the 1953 census, there was no possibility to declare oneself as a Muslim (Bosniak). According to the census, on an area of 51,221 km² in 1953, 2,847,459 inhabitants lived in BiH.

The third census of the FPRY was published on March 30, 1961. Conducted eight years after the previous one, this census brought significant changes. The division into districts was abolished, and a division into regions was introduced. Instead of the previous 66 districts, 12 regions were established, which were divided into 122 municipalities. This division, with some minor changes, has lasted to this day, with many municipalities still having borders drawn in 1961. Another significant change was the introduction of the category of Muslims as an ethnic affiliation, although some of today's Bosniaks still declared themselves as undecided Yugoslavs.

According to this census, on an area of 51,197 km² in BiH in 1961, 3,277,948 inhabitants lived. The number of female inhabitants was 1,678,238, and male inhabitants was 1,599,665.

The census in the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was conducted in 1971. According to that year's census, 3,746,111 inhabitants lived in BiH, of which 1,911,511 were female and 1,834,600 were male.

The census in the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was also conducted in 1981. According to that census, 4,124,256 inhabitants lived in BiH.

The last census in Bosnia and Herzegovina within the SFRY was conducted in March 1991. According to that census, on an area of 51,197 km² in 1991, 4,377,033 inhabitants lived in BiH. The number of female persons was 2,193,238, and male persons was 2,183,795.

The last, or 14th, census in Bosnia and Herzegovina was conducted in October 2013, but these results have still not been published. The reasons are political in nature. Unofficially, out of 3,791,622 enumerated persons, as many as 1,836,603 persons declared themselves as Bosniaks, 1,239,019 persons declared themselves as Serbs, while there were 553,000 Croats. Others numbered 163,000. Neither the Serbian nor the Croatian political corpus is satisfied with these results because many things would have to change in the "policy of division" of portfolios according to the national key in favor of some, and to the detriment of others or third parties, writes Patria.