ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

1953 population census in Bosnia and Herzegovina

So let's imagine that you are playing a game with all your friends, and you want to know how many people are playing the game. You could go to each of your friends and ask them their names, how old they are, and where they live. Then you would write down all that information on a piece of paper. This is kind of like what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1953, but on a much bigger scale.

In 1953, the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina wanted to know how many people were living in their country, and they wanted to know some information about these people, like how old they were, what their jobs were, and what ethnic group they belonged to. To do this, they sent out people to every part of the country to ask these questions to everyone they could find.

These people would knock on doors and ask whoever answered the questions. They would write down all the information they collected on special forms. These forms included questions like:

- What is your name?
- How old are you?
- Where were you born?
- What is your religion?
- What is your occupation?

These forms were then collected and counted by the government. This information was used to make decisions about things like how many schools or hospitals were needed in different parts of the country.

So, in short, the 1953 population census in Bosnia and Herzegovina was a big effort by the government to find out how many people were living in the country and some information about these people. They sent out people to ask these questions to everyone they could find and collected all the information on special forms. This information was then used to make decisions about the country.