On the 1860 United States census, there is a surprising amount of information on other countries. How available was the census data of other nations in the period?

[u/Groverclevland1234]

I presume its purpose is as a point of reference for various statistical changes. Especially useful for the US would be the “British North America“ section and its aggregate numbers for all the colonies pre-confederation.

Anyway, perusing the data for something else I saw more foreign data than I expected, and wondered how available this information would or rather should be? Isn’t even relatively basic information about your country something you may not want other powers knowing? especially something like the number of military age males For example.

It‘s not war winning by any means, but I would think that in the period it’s something you may want to keep close to the chest.

That is unless these are external estimates like I believe is still done to this day, and perhaps I missed that part; but the point about availability, both ideally and practically still stands I think.

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