The other censuses...

Everyone is familiar with the U.S. Census, the one where they count how many people there are in the country every ten years (2010 being the last one.) Actually though you may not realize it the census bureau does a lot more than simply tally up how many people there are. It surveys not only population statistics in a variety of ways, but counts all sorts of other things as well. There are more specialized censuses that are done too, like the Economic Census or the Census of Governments, both done every five years. (The latest for both of these is the 2007; the 2012 is currently being conducted.) Shown here is an old illustration of a census taker at work from an 1870s issue of Harpers Weekly.