Originally published in 1961, this book comprises of 14 studies by scholars and officials with first-hand experience of Africa and deals with the nature and organization of population censuses and with the many uses to which their results may be put. Written at a time of political transition on the African continent it was vitally important that the collection and interpretation of statistics dealing with distribution, density, migration and occupation in Africa continued. This volume shows how demographers, sociologists, anthropologists and geographers were using the research to be followed in the interpretation of the numerous censuses being conducted in the early 1960s.