1.1 Institution in Charge for Statistical Data and Censuses:

By the decision of the Government of the PR of Macedonia on June 1, 1945, the Macedonian Federal Statistical Bureau was formed. Concomitant to the establishment of the national Statistical Bureau, local statistical bureaus were created as well with the task to participate in collecting basic statistical data and carry out statistical research for the needs of the state.

1.2 Years of Census

Since the end of the Second world War, 8 population censuses were conducted in the Republic of Macedonia: 1948, 1953, 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991, 1994, 2002.

Since the first post-war census, the ethnonym “Macedonians” was used for the majority population of Macedonia, in contrast to the decades before, when they were counted as “Serbs” in the censuses of inter-war Yugoslavia. The largest minority are the Albanians, today comprising about 25 percent of the total population.

1.3 Share of Macedonians and Albanians of the Total Population

Year	Total population	Macedonians	Albanians
	in 1,000	in % of the total population
1948	1,115	68.5	17.1
1953	1,305	66.0	12.4*
1961	1,406	71.2	13.0
1971	1,647	69.3	17.0
1981	1,909	67.0	19.8
1991	2,034	65.3	21.7
1994	1,946	66.6	22.7
2002	2,041	64.2	25.2

The numbers for other minorities in 2002 were: Turks 77,959 (3.85 %), Roma 53,879 (2.66 %), Serbs 35,939 (1.78 %), Bosniaks 17,018 (0.84%) and Vlachs 9.596 (0.48 %).