[4] Rulers throughout Indonesia's history mostly used censuses for taxation purposes.
This association and the counting of households rather than individuals in earlier censuses make their figures highly unreliable.
[5] Sebastiaan Cornelis Nederburgh, the former Commissioner-General of the Dutch Cape Colony, organized the first formal census of Java in 1795.
[6] Between 1880 and 1905, the Dutch East Indies conducted partial population counts every five years, with most of the data being limited to Java.
A third full census was planned for 1940 but was cancelled because of Japanese occupation of the Indies during World War II.