Population estimation for local municipalities in South Africa

Diego Iturralde, Statistics South Africa
Louis van Tonder, Statistics South Africa
Sharthi Laldeparsad, Statistics South Africa
Chantal Munthree, Statistics South Africa

Population estimates are an important output of any modern day society for planning purposes but also to be used as a uniform denominator for surveys as well as reporting on population based indicators. The methods being considered include (a)geographical ratio method, (b)population growth extrapolation method, (c)Demographic Component method and (d)geographical hierarchy reconstruction method. Initial results show that the methods are very robust and comparable for large municipalities but there is a lot of variation when applied to municipalities with smaller populations. This paper explores a variety of methods that are able to estimate populations at municipal level and the intention is to ensure that the best methods can be used to come up with estimates at this level. Until now, estimates have been produced only down to district and metropolitan municipality level whilst local municipalities have been left out due to the lack of municipal level data that would be required.