Preliminary Results of the Census of 31 December 1890

Karl-Theodor von Inama-Sternegg and Heinrich Rauchberg’s 1891 article presents the preliminary census results for the kingdoms and lands represented in the Austrian Reichsrat. Its twelve sections move from the organization of rapid reporting and territorial comparability through buildings, residential parties, population growth, density, settlement size, and migration to an extended analysis of Vienna. A substantial district-by-district statistical appendix supplies the local evidence. The central finding is that relatively steady aggregate growth conceals sharply differentiated regional developments; interpreting these requires attention to census categories, administrative boundaries, and the geographical distribution of economic activity.

The opening sections explain how timely statistics were produced within an administrative system whose ordinary reporting deadlines delayed central compilation until June. Summation at the house, locality, municipality, and district levels made existing census paperwork serve a second purpose: rapid preliminary reporting. Most district returns arrived by mid-February, and printing proceeded before the final returns reached Vienna on 26 February. Speed nevertheless did not remove uncertainty. Since this reporting procedure was new, its relationship to definitive results remained untested. Territorial changes likewise required explicit adjustments: newly created districts received reconstructed 1880 populations, while other boundary alterations were documented through annotations or comparable territorial totals.

The census counted 23,835,261 persons present, including active military personnel, compared with 22,144,244 in 1880. Population increased by approximately 7.6 percent, residential buildings by 5.8 percent, and residential parties by 5.5 percent. Comparing annual rates across census intervals of unequal length, the authors emphasize continuity rather than demographic rupture:

Es zeigt sich somit eine ganz deutlich ausgesprochene Stetigkeit des Entwickelungsganges, wenn auch eine gewisse Verlangsamung desselben nicht zu verkennen ist.

English translation: Thus a quite clearly pronounced continuity in the course of development becomes apparent, although a certain slowing of it cannot be overlooked.

The divergence between population and housing growth leads to a conceptual distinction between the census unit, Wohnpartei or residential party, and either the family or the economically constituted household. Residential parties depend partly on buildings and their spatial subdivision; their numbers therefore cannot be treated as a transparent measure of domestic organization. Slower construction constrained their multiplication and raised average occupancy from 4.65 to 4.75 persons. The authors distinguish this measured increase from an opposing social tendency:

Wenn diese Erscheinung nicht noch deutlicher zutage tritt, so ist dies darauf zurückzuführen, dass derselben die entschieden fortschreitende Atomisierung der Familien- und Haushaltungsverbände als Gegentendenz im Wege steht, welche auch ziffermässig zum Ausdrucke gelangen würde, wenn dieselben die Einheit der Erhebung gebildet hätten.

English translation: If this phenomenon does not emerge still more clearly, this is attributable to the fact that the decidedly advancing atomization of family and household associations stands in its way as a countertendency, which would also find numerical expression if these associations had constituted the unit of enumeration.

Statistical classification thus mediates what can be inferred about social change. Buildings themselves follow no simple demographic regularity: economic conditions, building taxation, and construction activity all potentially influence their development.

Regional analysis similarly challenges the apparent coherence of aggregate figures. Growth slowed especially in Bohemia and Silesia, while Galicia, Bukovina, and Dalmatia gained prominence. The authors insist on moving below crownland averages:

Um in dieselben einzudringen, muss auf viel kleinere Gebietsabschnitte, zumindest aber auf die singulären Verhältnisse der einzelnen politischen Bezirke eingegangen werden.

English translation: To penetrate these conditions, one must examine much smaller territorial divisions, or at least the particular circumstances of the individual political districts.

Their geographical account identifies persistent declining or stagnant zones along the Central Alps and across southern and southwestern Bohemia. Rapid growth appeared around Vienna and Prague and in mining and industrial districts, whereas eastern Galicia, Bukovina, and parts of Dalmatia contained extensive contiguous areas of strong increase. Recurrence across successive census periods suggests enduring structural causes, though particular cases—such as railway construction temporarily swelling Landeck’s population—require local explanation.

Population density offers no straightforward explanation of these differences. The authors tentatively invoke an economically conditioned saturation point in the Sudeten lands, contrasting this with Galicia and Bukovina, which they characterize as having features of colonial territory. Settlement size receives greater explanatory weight:

Von ungleich grösserem Einflüsse auf die Entwickelung der Volkszahl als die Dichtigkeit der Bevölkerung sind die Formen ihrer Ansiedelung je nach der Grösse der Wohnplätze.

English translation: The forms of population settlement according to the size of inhabited places exert a far greater influence on the development of population numbers than population density does.

Using municipalities because finer settlement data were unavailable, they find increasing growth rates with settlement size below 10,000 inhabitants. With 2,000 inhabitants as the conventional rural–urban threshold, rural population rose by 3.50 percent and urban population by 14.26 percent. Such categories remain administrative approximations, and transfers between size classes complicate interpretation.

The final analyses separate natural increase from migration and administrative enlargement from actual metropolitan growth. Because direct migration records were inadequate, the authors subtract expected civilian population, calculated from births minus deaths, from the census count. This yields an estimated net outward migration of 329,054 persons; the calculation remains provisional because the 1890 birth surplus was estimated. They also refuse to treat plausible migration routes between crownlands as statistically demonstrated. Vienna provides the culminating boundary-sensitive case: within its enlarged territory, population grew by 21.9 percent, compared with 14.6 percent in the former city and 35.7 percent in the incorporated areas. Annexation therefore absorbed unusually dynamic suburbs as well as increasing the city’s recorded size. The article’s lasting relevance lies in this disciplined distinction between demographic processes and the statistical territories and units through which they become visible.