As of July 30, 1953, the Chinese People's Republic conducted a census in preparation for nation wide elections. Extensive publicity described this as the most complete census ever undertaken in China, but critical evaluation is impossible. Since the totals are more than 100 million larger than any previous estimates, they must be regarded with considerable reserve. The details were announced by the Statistical Bureau on Nov. 1, 1954. Over 2,500,000 census enumerators were employed. A recheck was made on 9 per cent of the population, covering 52,915,000 people and showed duplications amounting to 1/10 of 1 per cent and omissions of 2/10 of 1 per cent.