Census Leads Online Trends

In a sure sign of success for President Hassan Rouhani government over the previous Iranian month of Mehr (ended Oct. 21), the country’s regions all showed a relatively similar most-searched result, according to Google’s Trends.

In a first for the Islamic Republic, all provinces in the country searched for a variant of the national census, according to data-mining techniques from the search giant.

The 30-day period shows that from Alborz to Zanjan provinces, Sarshomari 95—as the census is called in the Persian language—was the most popular search topic.

The first online phase of the census could be, as attested by the results, the best organized government initiative since the Rouhani administration came to power in 2013.   

Online registrations in the eighth edition of the census finished on October 19 with over 5.1 million households registering their details.

“More than 5.1 million households participated online in this year’s census since it began on September 24, up until 6 a.m. on October 15. So far, close to 17.3 million people have been registered, accounting for 20.5% of all Iranian households and 21.5% of the population,” Omid Ali Parsa, director of the Statistical Center of Iran, was quoted as saying by IRNA.

The government has already hailed that the data gathering was a rounding success with the Minister of Communications and Information Technology admitting just a few days after the online version ended.

Mahmoud Vaezi added that the over 20% participation rate places Iran second in the world after Japan with a participation rate of 35% in its first online census, ISNA reported on October 21.

The longer term results of the census are also being highlighted in search trends, with later results showing 60% of the country still searching out exactly what they have to do when the census information gatherers knock on the door.

The door-to-door phase of the census round began in earnest on October 21, with eyewitness reports suggesting the census-takers assiduously following up every family.

The added emphasis this year follows a recent visit by the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei who urged SCI to do a good job in this year’s data collection.

The Rouhani government was fully behind the objective, mainly for economic purposes, to have a handle on who lives where, what they do for a living and what their education level is.