Census of Population and Housing 1976: Collection District Master File

What is the CDMF?

Record structure and Field Data Code Groups

Download an .rtf version of documents related to the CDMF

What is the CDMF?

The Collection District Master File is used to store, for each Collection District (CD) in Australia, information about CD's for tabulation, field control, processing control and general research purposes, and to facilitate linkage to previous Census data.

The record each CD includes geographic area codes for State Area, LGA Section, Statistical Division, Statistical Subdivision, Section of State, Commonwealth Electoral Division (1977 boundaries), Locality, Postcode, State Electoral Division, Statistical Town/City, State Suburb, State Health Area, Study Area and LGA. These are used both in their own right and to produce higher level aggregates for the population and dwelling data: counts for males and females, occupied/unoccupied, private/non-private dwellings. The records also contain comparability indicators to the 1966 and 1971 Census CD's.

The Master File contains, for each CD, one record of data. There are therefore 24,614 logical records, each of 200 characters in length, containing 58 cells of CD information.

For information about the way Census 76 was planned, designed, executed and processed, information on the person and dwelling characteristics included in statistical output and some guidance to other census products, see "Making Sense of Census 1976.

Record Structure

The 58 cells of information for the CD Master File are in the one physical record for each logical record:

• 1976 Indicative
• Check Digit
• State Area Code
• LGA Section
• Statistical Division
• Statistical Subdivision
• Section of State
• Commonwealth Electoral Division
• Locality
• Postcode
• 1971 Field Code
• 1971 LGA Code
• 1971-1976 CD Comparability Indicator
• 1966 Field Code
• 1966-1976 CD Comparability Indicator
• Collection District Workload
• Multiple Collector Indicator
• 1971 Census Dwellings
• 1966 Census Dwellings
• 1971 Population
• 1976 Estimated Dwellings
• CD Type Indicator
• State Electoral Division
• Statistical Town/City
• State Suburb Code
• State Health Area Code
• Blank
• DCC Stratum Code
• DCC Flag
• PES Flag
• Blank
• Date of Data Entry (YYMMDD)
• Total Males
• Total Females
• Total Persons
• Total Occupied Dwellings
• Total Unoccupied Dwellings
• Total Dwellings
• Non-private Dwellings
• Males in non-private Dwellings
• Females in non-private Dwellings
• Persons in non-private Dwellings
• DZ/OZ
• Study Area Code
• Census LGA Code
• Group Leader Workload
• Confidential CD
• Indicative of Receiving CD
• CD Serial Number
• Blank
• Estimated 50% Private Dwellings
• Estimated 50% Population of Private Dwellings
• Estimated 50% Population
• Latitude
• Longitude
• Area
• Blank
• Error Status Flag