The 1961 Indonesian census was the first census of Indonesia as a sovereign state. With a total population of 97,018,829, Indonesia was the world's fifth-most populous country at the time. The census covered all territories in the country, but no enumeration was done in Indonesian-claimed Western New Guinea because it was under Dutch occupation. Instead, an estimated population for the region was included in the final census numbers.
As the first census since 1930, when Indonesia was still a colony of the Netherlands, the data was used for planning the nation's future development. One-third of the country's population was under the age of ten, and 65 percent of the population lived on the island of Java, which had been considered overpopulated as early as the 1930s. Demographers highlighted that the large proportion of young people presented a demographic challenge. Given that as many as one-fifth of rural youths were already unemployed, there was a question of whether Indonesia would be able to absorb a future surge of new workers. Agriculture was the dominant industry, employing 72 percent of workers. The census also collected data on school attendance to facilitate education planning. Just under half of the population aged ten and older could read and write in either Latin characters or a non-Latin script.
About 350,000 enumerators were enlisted at the provincial, regency, and district levels. Fields operations began in February 1961, with enumeration and final verification being conducted in October. Tabulation was conducted at the bureau and at the provincial level, but only data for three provinces were ever processed completely. Data for the rest of Indonesia were drawn from a 1 percent sample tabulation of census returns, and many of the original census results have since been lost.
Background
The 1961 census was the first census in Indonesia after independence from the Netherlands. The 1930 Dutch East Indies census was the previous census completed and enumerated a total population of 60,727,233. A census had been planned for 1940, but it was canceled because of World War II. Based on the assumption of a constant rate of growth from the 1930 census, the official population estimate for 1940 was 70.4 million. A subsequent estimate in 1950—this time compiled from civil registration records held by local village heads—placed the population at 77.2 million. However, population records in parts of Java and in the rest of the country at the time were often deficient, and data compilation methods were inconsistent; therefore, the reliability of this estimate has come into question.
In 1953, the United Nations Statistical Commission and Population Commission began encouraging UN member countries to take and complete their national censuses in and around 1960 under a new set of statistical methods. In response, the Djuanda Cabinet created Indonesia's Central Bureau of Statistics (, or BPS) through an ordinance in January 1958 and mandated it to prepare a census to be held in 1960 or 1961. The legislature, the People's Representative Council of Mutual Aid (), repealed a Dutch-era census law in the name of national planning and development, and Law No. 6 of 1960 on the Census became the new legal basis of the census.
Enumeration and tabulation
Census day was officially designated as 31 October 1961. To facilitate operations, the BPS established a census office in each province, and provincial governors were appointed ex officio directors of census operations. Provincial office staff were trained directly by the bureau, and they, in turn, trained census officials at the regency level. The chain continued down to the district level, where enumerators and their supervisors were trained. In total, the census enlisted about 350,000 enumerators and 50,000 supervisors.