Pakistan’s 2023 census was the first digital census in South Asian history.
The seventh Population and Housing Census replaced paper-based enumeration with tablet data collection, geographic tagging and a central monitoring system. Pakistan also introduced a self-enumeration portal, allowing residents to submit household information online before field workers verified the data.
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics began self-enumeration in February 2023, while face-to-face field operations started on 1 March. The exercise covered population and housing characteristics and was intended to improve accuracy, transparency and planning for schools, healthcare, infrastructure and political representation.
A common mix-up is confusing Pakistan’s digital census with the first census in the region to use computers for processing. The distinctive claim here concerns a fully digital enumeration system, including tablet-based fieldwork and online self-enumeration. Pakistan’s previous nationwide census, held in 2017, was conducted manually.