The census data were collected as of midnight October 9, 2002.
Resident population
The census was primarily intended to collect statistical information about the resident population of Russian Federation. The resident population included:
* persons who have arrived to the country with the intent to settle permanently or to seek asylum, regardless of whether they have actually obtained the appropriate immigration status;
* authorized foreign workers or students, provided the period of temporary residence in Russia was expected to last at least one year.
All detailed census tables are for the resident population. All participants were asked question on their gender, birth date, marital status, household composition, birthplace, citizenship, ethnic or tribal self-identification, education level, language competence, sources of income, and employment status. A sample of the participants were also asked more detailed questions about their economic and housing situation.
Non-residents
Also, the census also counted two more groups of people:
Russian citizens currently living abroad for more than one year in connection with the employment with the federal government.
Persons permanently residing abroad, but temporarily present in Russia.
Foreign citizens present in Russia as employees of foreign diplomatic missions or international organizations, and members of their household, were excluded from the census altogether.
Census results
The Census recorded the resident population of 145,166,731 persons, including 67,605,133 men and 77,561,598 women. That included urban population of 106,429,000 and rural population of 38,738,000. The non-resident populations included:
Russian citizens living abroad in connection with the federal government service: 107,288 ;
Foreign residents present in Russia on the census date: 239,018.
Citizenship
Census participants were asked what country they were citizens of. 142,442,000 respondents reported being Russian citizens; among them, 44,000 also had citizenship of another country. Among Russia's resident population, 1,025,413 foreign citizens and 429,881 stateless persons were counted.
1,269,023 persons did not report their citizenship.
Language abilities
Among the questions asked were "Are you competent in the Russian language?" and "What other languages are you competent in?". As the census manual explained, "competence" meant either the ability to speak, read and write a language, or only the ability to speak it. The questions did not distinguish native and non-native speakers, nor did they try to measure the degree of language competence. For small children, presumably, the recorded answer was based on the language spoken by the parents. 142.6 million of the responders claimed competence in Russian. Other widely reported languages are listed in the table below.
Language
Speakers
English
6.95
Tatar
5.35
German
2.90
Ukrainian
1.81
Chechen
1.33
Chuvash
1.33
Armenian
0.91
Avar
0.78
French
0.71
Azerbaijani
0.67
Mordvin
0.61
Kabardian or Circassian
0.59
Kazakh
0.56
Dargin
0.50
1.42 million responders did not provide language information. For a more detailed list, see List of languages of Russia.
