Folketellingen

Folketellingen is the term used in Norwegian for an official population census, the systematic counting of the inhabitants of a country or area, often accompanied by basic demographic information. It provides a snapshot of the size, structure, and characteristics of the population at a given time and is used to support planning, policy-making, and the allocation of resources.

Historically, folketellingen collected data such as the number of residents, households, age, sex, relationships within households, civil status, place of birth, citizenship, occupation, education, and sometimes language and migration history. Methods have evolved from door-to-door enumeration by government officials to modern approaches that may combine self-report questionnaires, digital forms, and linkage to administrative records.

In the Norwegian context, folketellingen has a long archival tradition and is central to the development of official statistics. The activity has been overseen by national statistical authorities, with Statistics Norway (Statistisk sentralbyrå) playing a key role in coordinating population data and surveys. In contemporary practice, many countries increasingly rely on population registers and administrative data, and full decennial censuses may be supplemented or, in some cases, replaced by continuous, register-based statistics. Nevertheless, folketellingen remains a foundational concept in demography and historical scholarship, used to analyze population size, distribution, and change over time.