The National Statistics Bureau said the priority of the third one-percent national sample census will be to measure the migrant population, newborns and the deceased, according to a Xinhua News Agency report today.

Zhang Weimin, deputy director of the bureau and member of the leading group in charge of the sample census, said data collection will take place in every household of selected residential quarters.

China has so far carried out five national censuses in the past 56 years since 1949. The government started sample censuses, which sample one percent of the population, in the 1980s.

The census, the third of its kind, will cover 90,000 residential quarters in 2,800 counties, cities and districts of the country's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

Data collection will start on November 1 and data processing from November 16.

The sample census, announced by the State Council on October 19, will sample over 13 million people.

(Xinhua News Agency November 1, 2005)