Census Day in Argentina

Thursday, October 27th, was census day in Argentina. The entire country essentially came to a standstill so that everyone could be counted.

Only essential services are allowed to remain open while an army of questioners covers the country, including shanty towns, prisons, homes for the elderly and psychiatric hospitals.

Argentina has many remote regions and some surveyors started work early to reach indigenous communities high in the Andes mountains and took boats to some of the countless islands in the River Plate delta.

The census is being carried out by the National Statistics Office, known as Indec by its Spanish initials, which critics have accused of publishing misleading inflation and poverty figures that favour the government.

Although we know that people are routinely suspicious of censuses, there is no evidence that former President Kirchner's death the day before the census was in any way connected to the census.