Historical Background of Statistics

Pictorial representations

Used by ancient civilizations to record numbers of people, animals, and objects on various surfaces.

Babylonian clay tablets

Small tablets used before 3000 B.C. to record agricultural yields, commodities, and population data.

Egyptian population analysis

Conducted in the 31st century B.C. to understand the population and wealth before building pyramids.

Biblical censuses

Found in the book of Numbers and 1 Chronicles, detailing censuses of Israelites and material wealth of Jewish tribes.

Chinese statistics

Traced back to the Shang Dynasty for administrative purposes like population censuses and resource inventories.

Greek censuses

Used for taxation and during times of stress to count citizens and the general populace.

Roman data collection

First government to extensively gather data on population, area, and wealth for military and administrative purposes.

Carolingian surveys

Ordered by Pepins the Short and Charlemagne to assess ecclesiastical holdings.

English census

Ordered by William I after the Norman Conquest in 1066, recorded in the Doomsday Book in 1086.

Halley's mortality table

Developed in Breslau, Germany in 1691 by Edmond Halley as the basis for early mortality tables.

Modern statistics

Reliable tool for describing and analyzing economic, political, social, and other data accurately.