ZAGREB, 28 Sept, 2021 - A total of 1.637 million Croatian citizens have self-enumerated during the first phase of the 2021 census of the population, households and dwellings, which is more than 40% of the total population, the national statistical office (DZS) said on Tuesday.

Most of the citizens who have self-enumerated are from the City of Zagreb, 489,138 or 60% of the city's total population, and from Split-Dalmatia County, where 165,678 citizens or 37% of the county's total population have self-enumerated.

Split-Dalmatia County is followed by Zagreb County, with 137,313 self-enumerated citizens (44%), and Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, with 135,878 self-enumerated citizens (48%).

Citizens used the option of online self-enumeration the least in Lika-Senj County (10,400 or 23% of the county population), Virovitica-Podravina County (17,627 or 24% of the county population), and Požega-Slavonia County (17,724 or 27%).

In the second phase of the census, which starts on Tuesday, census-takers will be taking census data on the ground by visiting households and registering citizens, households and dwellings and taking from citizens who have self-enumerated control codes proving that they have successfully self-enumerated, the DZS said.

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ZAGREB, July 9, 2020 - Croats who moved into Argentina and their descendants can take part in a digital census-taking launched to gather information about the number of people with the Croat background in that South American country.

"We are searching for the Croats (settlers) and their descendants in Argentina. That refers to their children, grandchildren, grand-grand-children. We want them to say, on a voluntary basis, where they reside now," said Cristian Sprljan, a member of the Council of the Republic of Croatia, and advisory body that provides the Croatian government with consulting services.

That council is in charge of taking this digital census.

Sprljan told the Argentinian radio station Cadena 3 that it was still unknown how many Croats had settled Argentina and how many descendants they had.

The online census taking was launched on 28 June. It includes a questionnaire and all people concerned are kindly asked to fill it in the next six months, that is until 28 December.

Sprljan described this as a unique project, which is being conducted in cooperation with the Croatian embassy in Buenos Aires.

Croatians emigrated to Argentina in a few waves, and the first large-scale group of immigrants arrived there before  1918. The second wave was between 1919 and 1945, and the third ensued after the Second World War.

The Croat ex-pat community in Argentina includes some of the prominent people in arts, sports and business, for instance, singer and actress Sandra Mihanovich, former tennis player Daniel Orsanic,  Yamila Nizetich who is a volleyball player and a member of the Argentina national team, footballer Daniel Bilos, former volleyball player Marcos Milinkovic, football manager, Juan Pablo Vojvoda many others. The mother of former Argentinian president Nestor Carlos Kirchner Jr, María Juana Ostoic, was also of the Croat origin.

Some of them have called on the member of the Croat expat community to fill the questionnaire available online as "Primer Censo Digital de los Croatas y sus Descendientes de la República Argentina".