N. Korea putting final touches on joint census with U.N.

SEOUL, July 10 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's state media said Friday that the country
is wrapping up a census believed to be its first joint survey with the United
Nations in 15 years.

The door-to-door survey was conducted between October 1-15 last year, with the
final tally expected to be released in October this year. The preliminary count,
reported in February, was 24,050,000.
The North's Korean Central News Agency said the country conducted a "post-survey"
to evaluate the census, taking a 1 percent sample of the entire population and
found that the margin of error in the population count was "very low."
The post-survey reviewed major points of the census, such as the extent of errors
in the count, individuals' relationship to their households, gender, age,
education levels and marital status, it said.
As reasons for the low error margin, the report quoted a local census official as
saying that the country has a "systematic" population registry and has
temporarily banned movements before and after the census. It also praised the
"high integrity" of survey takers.
"The second population census is making progress in its final stage," the report
said.
North Korea's first joint census with the UNDP was conducted in 1993 and released
the following year. North Korea releases its own census in its annals, with the
latest data available in the 2008 edition putting the number at 23,612,000.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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