Population census – City of Lorient

Census of the Eastern population since the 18th century, this list specifies:

• Census year

• The total number of inhabitants recorded in the municipality

The census records of the Eastern population existed from 1936 to 1975 and are kept by the Archives. They have all been digitised, but only the 1936 census is available online, the population censuses from 1946 to 1975 can be consulted in the reading room.

Consult the 1936 Census

Before the French Revolution, the population was evaluated by fire (i.e. by house) or parish; it was a simple population count.

In 1800, Lucien Bonaparte, Minister of the Interior, organised the foundations of the modern census with the establishment of the first general enumeration of the population.

Systematic nominative lists by municipality were put in place in 1836.

These censuses are then held every 5 years (years in 1 and 6) but are disturbed in times of war: thus the 1871 was established in 1872 and those of 1916 and 1941 were not realised.

In the second half of the 20th century, periodicity is no longer as regular, censuses in the form of nominative lists took place in 1946, 1954, 1962, 1968 and 1975. From the 1954 census, nominative lists became optional.

In 1982, the nominative list was deleted at the request of the National Commission for Informatics and Freedoms (CNIL), the censuses were then compiled in the form of statistical tables.