A Délvidék településeinek nemzetiségi (anyanyelvi) adatai 1880–1941 (1998)

ELŐSZÓ

— data sources, missing information and method of publication, — population and ethnic structure of historical Southern Hungary, - population of Hungárián mothertongue by county, district and locality, and - modification of the data connected with the changes of the country's borders. Naturally we tried to register conveniently the locality-level changes over time of the population of Hungárián nationality and mother tongue, but, at the same time, we paid special attention not to introduce any error in presenting the size or share of populations or even population fractions of other mother tongues or nationalities either. The following short summary aims at the correct understanding of the data of the publication, and alsó at illustrating somé aspects of our difficulties - not presented in detail in the methodologic chapter- in compiling this volume. a) It is known that census publications - our sources - present locality data in accordance with the administrative territorial division prevailing at the reference date of the given censuses. Our volume - similarly to all others in this series - presents locality-level time series according to the administrative situation in force at the time of the 1910 census. Thus, generally we have not taken into account the legal measures concerning the changes in administrative territorial division of localities between 1880 and 1941. b) The 1880 data contain the size and distribution of the civil population only, i.e without the number of the members of armed forces, while the other census data contain totál present population. c) The population numbers of the 1910 census aggregated according to the administrative division show a slight departure with respect to the official totals of the respective censuses. Although these difference are negligible, the possibility of random errors cannot be excluded. To conclude, let me hope, this publication together with all others of the series will cope with existing data needs, constitute real and up-to-date approaches and promote scientific researches. Budapest, January 1998 (dr. Mikrós Balogh) deputy president 10