This year there will be censuses taken in many countries.

In the March 23rd issue of The New Yorker magazine, there’s an article about census-taking by Jill Lepore. She touches on many issues in the article, but what caught my eye was this:

“The first modern census–one that counted everyone, not just men of fighting age or taxpayers, and noted all their names and ages–dates to 1703, and was taken in Iceland, where astonishingly accurate census-takers counted 50,366 people. (They only missed one farm.)”

Those amazing Icelanders!

Reykjavik the capital city of Iceland.
Reykjavik, capital city of Iceland, with Mt. Esja in the background. It now numbers more than 250,000 people, more than five times the population of the entire country in 1703. Photo credit: Boylosi/Getty Images.
Northern Lights in Vik 1
I wonder if this was the farm that didn’t get counted in 1703?