Germany has one million 'ghost' population: statistics

Wed, Jul 23 09:49 AM

Berlin, July 23 (Xinhua) Germany has a 'ghost' population of more than one million - people who are registered but simply don't exist, Germany's Federal Statistics Office said.

The Wiesdbaden-based office Tuesday said it believed Germany's current population tally of 82.2 million was high by 1.3 million because many people had failed to de-register when moving to new homes.

They remained on the books as 'card-index ghosts'.

According to German laws, everyone living in Germany, citizen or alien, has to register his name and address at a local government office, and de-register himself and his children when moving away.

For the upcoming 2011 European Union census, Germany plans to calculate its population using estimates from registers, welfare records, mail-carrier records and a detailed survey of a small sample of the population.

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