Preface

A major approach to produce data required for planning different services and activities at national and regional levels, as well as monitoring and evaluating of them, is to launch a national population and housing census (NPHC). Population enumeration, currently known as population census, has a long history among nations across the world. Through population census governments may access to certain major characteristics about the nations, in addition to their numbers.

Nowadays, most countries implement the NPHC every 5 or 10 years; That is while in Iran it has to be taken every 10 years (the Law of the Statistical Center of Iran, article 4).

So far there have been 5 incidences of population census in Iran in the years 1956, 1966, 1976, 1986, and 1996; all taken in accordance with scientific methods and requirements of the time. The technical and scientific aspects of census taking have shown signs of improvement during the mentioned 5 incidences; while the contributing experts have been able to obtain valuable experiences. In addition to the above censuses, all conducted based on the state-of-the-art approaches, there was also an incidence of a de jour census in 1939, which covered a total of 36 cities/towns across the nation. The attempt, however, proved a failure to some unknown reasons.

The large number of activities involved in a population census, many of which are so extensive, demands systematic programming a few years prior to the field operation. The SCI started preliminaries for the NPHC2006 in the early 2003, while later in the year established the headquarters of the census in the Statistical Center of Iran�s (SCI) premises.

The present report contains the duties and lists of members of the headquarters, and different groups and committees.

We hope that with the help of God the Almighty and cooperation of all scholars, the SCI would be able to conduct the census successfully.

At the end, we wish success for everybody involved in the conduction of the sixth Iranian NPHC.