Franz Kröger

 

Remarks on the 2000 Ghana Population and Housing Census

 

To put it in a nutshell: The publication of the 2000 Ghana Population Census is the best that has ever appeared. Most significantly, by avoiding the very confusing representation of the data, which made many previous census entries inapplicable, the 2000 census has been improved. In the Gazetteers (alphabetical lists of Ghana’s settlements) of former censuses, the Bulsa towns and villages were arranged partly according to their village names and partly to the clan-sections (e.g. Abilyeri, Yisobsa, Chiok etc.) inhabiting these places. It was nearly impossible to determine the total population of, say, Wiaga. In the 2000 Gazetteer, the clan-sections appear as sub-entries under the village names so that the reader must only sum up the population data of these sections to get the total population of the village. Continuing in this method, the total population of the people in the Bulsa District is 63,748. In a table of the population by region and district, the total number in the Builsa District is 75,375, which probably means that some clan-sections of villages were still registered under their clan name.

At this point, please allow me to make some speculation about the total number of Bulsa living on earth. We should add the population of Biuk (2,875), Kunkwa (1,595) and Kategra (520) and, above all, the thousands of Bulsa living outside of the Bulsa District within Ghana or in other parts of the world to the 75,375 inhabitants of the district. My estimation in BULUK 2 (p.30) that there are currently about 100,000 Bulsa on earth does not seem to be quite wrong, for according to the 2000 Population and Housing Census (Summary Report of Final Results, p. 23) 118,709 Bulsa are currently living in Ghana.

For the first time we can cite quite reliable data regarding the population of the 13 Bulsa villages:

Bachonsa: 660

Chuchuliga: 7,752

Doninga: 1,676

Fumbisi: 8,154

Gbedema: 3,709

Gbedembilisi: 285

Kadema: 1,873

Kanjaga: 5,175

Sandema: 14,736

Siniensi: 3,058

Wiaga: 10,858

Wiesi: 1,413

Yiwasi: 2,526

A separate publication of the 2000 Population Census (Special Report on Urban Localities) includes all Ghanaian urban localities... "with a population of 5,000 or more" (p. iv).

It is, however, noteworthy that the Bulsa localities of Chuchuliga (7,752) Fumbisi (8,154), Sandema (14,736) and Wiaga (10,858) do not appear in this list.

According to the Accra Census Office, the results of the Population Census 2010 will appear soon.