THE MOROCCAN EXPERIENCE IN THE
CENSUS CARTOGRAPHY AND THE GIS
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Introduction
Cartography
– Objectives
– Methodology
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Urban
Rural
– Difficulties
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GIS
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Objectives
Setting up
Achievements
Difficulties
Conclusion
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Introduction
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The Population and Housing General Census (PHGC)
involves extensive financial, human, material, and technical
resources.
It requires, among others, a previous cartographic work that
consists mainly in:
– collecting adequate cartographic mediums permitting to assure the
exhaustiveness of the census;
– constituting the different geographical entities of the census (districts,
zones of control, zones of supervision) ;
– gathering the necessary statistical information to plan and execute all
the census phases;
– setting a coding system facilitating the processing of the data
collected through the census.
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For the censuses previous to 2004, this statistical
cartography was essentially a tool to produce plans
permitting to appropriately achieve the works of data
collection.
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Introduction
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The last decades technological progress in geographical
information digitalization revolutionized the cartography and
allowed it to serve the works of data collection, processing,
analysis and the dissemination of the results.
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In this presentation, we attempt to relate the Moroccan
experience concerning:
– The objectives, the methodology, and the problems and difficulties met
during the census cartographic process phases.
– The setting up of the Geographical Information System: Objectives,
implementation, achievements and difficulties.
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Cartography
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The cartography has always been associated with the
operations aiming at the country population counts. It
consists indeed in providing the staff with necessary
elements to carry out the data collection works.
It is thus of fundamental importance for the censuses
since it assures one of the latter’s universal basic
principles: exhaustiveness.
In Morocco, the methodology adopted in the setting of
the statistical cartography takes in consideration the
differences that exist between the two residence
surroundings.
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Cartography
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In urban area, this methodology didn't witness major
modifications across the censuses. Based essentially on the
actualization of the restitution plans of the cities, this approach
has always been considered efficient to appropriately fulfill the
census needs in reliable cartographic documentation.
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On the other hand, the natural specificities of the rural area,
as well as the lack of recent and reliable cartographic
materials, generally influenced the recommended approach for
the statistical cartography in the rural area.
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Objectives
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Provide coverage of the national territory with recent, reliable
and exhaustive maps for the cities, as well as for the farming
areas.
Conduct the partition of the entire national territory in
geographical zones (census districts) permitting to ensure the
exhaustiveness of the census.
Endow data collection teams (supervisors, controllers and
surveyors) with cartographic documents assuring easy
localization of the different observation units at the time of
census execution (households, constructions, lodgings,
professional use locals, etc.).
Collect geographical information required to put in place the
adequate organizational device and to assess the human and
material means in order to succeed all the census stages.
Build a ground sampling basis permitting to set up the intercensus program of households and population surveys on
reliable data.
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Urban area cartography
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The cartography conceived for the cities and urban centers
kept a large constancy in the methodological content
recommended for all censuses achieved since the country
independence.
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It is based on the method of islets, and consists in achieving
the main following tasks, prior to each census operation :
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Urban area cartography
1.
Update the available cartographic funds of the urban
communes for the whole territory.
This is based on the previous census maps, completed by
plans collected from different departments that are producing
maps (restitution plans, physical planning, housing plans,
etc.), notably for the peripheries and the extension zones of
the cities. The scale of these cartographic mediums generally
varies between 1 over 2000 and 1 over 5000.
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Urban area cartography
This activity consists in:
1.
Noticing and reporting on these funds the shapes and the
geographical positions of the islets and their components:
constructions, lodgings, professional premises, etc.
2.
Transcribing, on these maps, useful elements for addresses
system to facilitate the localization of observation units, at
the time of the census and the sampling surveys. This
concerns the names of streets, avenues, facilities (schools,
colleges, high schools, clinics, hospitals, hotels, etc.).
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Urban area cartography
2.
Partition the territory of cities and urban centers into census
districts, on the updated map funds. A district is a well
delimited geographical zone including a number of
households to be counted by a census taker during legally
fixed census data collection time. The sectors of control and
the zones of supervision are then defined from the districts, as
basic geographical units.
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Rural area cartography
Approaches proposed for the farming areas underwent
important innovations aiming to improve the quality of
the cartographic documents.
For the earlier censuses (after the independence: 1960,
1971 and 1982), the approach combined the
topographic maps, permitting to materialize and to set
up the communes boundaries, and the lists of the
farming localities: douars (villages) and sub-douars.
The census districts are constituted in this case by a set of
douars according to size criteria, in terms of
households and especially of minimum distances to
browse.
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Rural area cartography
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For the census of 1994, a great effort has been carried out
by conducting the area partition of all the national farming
territory, in the same way as in the cities and urban centers.
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The farming districts are defined thus as being the parts of
the communes, having clear boundaries and an average
number of households likely to be counted by one census
taker during the census execution time.
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Rural area cartography
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The methodology recommended for the cartographic
partition in farming area takes notably into account the
specificities relating to relief difficulties and the typology
of the douars.
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The latter are characterized either by their “explosion” or
by the scattering of their lodgings through generally
large and uneasily accessible territories.
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The douars constituted in grouped agglomerations
represent only the third of the total douars at the national
level.
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Rural area cartography
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For each commune, the partition in census districts is
made on the basis of topographic maps on the scale of
1 over 50.000. These mediums give a detailed and
accurate representation of the reported natural
elements of the territory (roads, buildings, railroad
tracks, transportation and electric energy lines, lakes,
rivers, relief, etc.).
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However, we do not have thorough cartographic
mediums for the farming localities (douars). In these
cases, the cartographers are called on to prepare maps
giving roughly the structures of habitat, construction
and road network for the high seized douars.
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Main difficulties met
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Insufficient cartographic coverage:
On the occasion of each passage of the cartographers
(before every census operation), the cartographic
teams seek cartographic funds permitting to
appropriately update the statistical cartography.
To this end, the main departments and organisms from
which we seek maps are: the Land-registry National
Agency “Agence Nationale du Cadastre, de la
Cartographie et de la Conservation Foncière”, the
Urban Agencies, the Provinces and Prefectures
technical services, the Urbanism and Regional
Development Department.
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Main difficulties met
The outcome is not always conclusive, either because the
collected maps were old or because of lack of
coverage, notably in the cities peripheries. In these
cases, the cartographic staff is constrained to set up
maps by using the steps method.
Frequent changes in the borders of the communes
The limits between the communes are among the
difficulties that hinder the cartographic work good
progress. These are not defined by any cadastral plan
and are subject to frequent changes because of new
administrative partitions.
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HCP, MOROCCO
Main difficulties met
Incomplete system of addresses
Inexistent in farming areas, the system of addresses
adopted in the cities and urban centers show important
gaps, especially in the peripheral districts. To make up
for this difficulty, we try to gather, during the
cartographic work, a maximum of information to help
better localizing the observation units (names of
households heads, names of the basis facilities, etc.). In
farming areas, the contribution of local authority
representatives provide important support to surveys
interviewers and census takers at the data collection
time.
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HCP, MOROCCO
Main difficulties met
The programming of the censuses
The programming of the field cartographic works is set
up according to the date planned for the population
census execution. Any postpone of this date is likely to
influence the quality of the maps prepared for the
census. Updating tasks, caused by such rescheduling,
often require important time and means mobilization.
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incompatibility of the douars “villages” with land
partitioning
The “douar” is more an ethnic than a geographical
concept. It is not always compatible with the
principles of the adopted partition approach.
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HCP, MOROCCO
Main difficulties met
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Appeal to insufficiently skilled staff for the
cartography
The important mass of activities, generally required by
the statistical cartography, and the buffer delays to
respect for a guaranteed quality of the cartographic
documents, require the mobilization of human means
exceeding the potential of the department in charge of
the census.
This makes it necessary to resort to less than suitably
skilled staff (in cartography training and
qualifications).
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The Geographical Information System
The geographical information occupies a growing
place in the national statistical information
systems. It includes two main components:
– The map : conventional space representation;
– The territory indexed statistical data.
The technological progress permitted to bind these
two components through the setting up of
geographical information systems (GIS).
– GIS include software and computer procedures
conceived to enter, process, analyze and present data
with spatial reference in link with their geographical
localization.
– They allow enriching the analysis and diffusion of
statistical data and the publication of thematic maps.
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The Geographical Information System
Aware of its contribution, and having all necessary
elements for its development (maps, statistical
databases), the Moroccan Statistics Directory
undertook, since 1997, the process of setting up the
geographical information system.
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Objectives
The objectives of the GIS of the Statistics Directory
are mainly:
 to produce, for the censuses and the surveys, the
maps and up-to-date geographical data, of good
quality in terms of reliability and precision, and
with savings in terms of costs and delays;

to integrate the spatialized data of the different
statistical databases, facilitating the follow-up of
the demographic, socioeconomic and
environmental evolution of the different
territorial entities;
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Objectives
to provide a modern analysis tool for the
presentation and dissemination of the statistical
information, illustrating the phenomena that it
describes on the corresponding cartographic
medium;
 to provide new solutions for the development and
management of the sampling bases and the
drawing of the samples for the surveys purpose;
 to present a conceptual framework of
management, organization and follow-up of the
fieldworks of different statistical operations.
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Setting up
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Throughout its activities (censuses, surveys, collection
of administrative statistics), the Statistics Directory
generates some databases relating to several themes:
demography, economy, social, environment, etc.
These data can be processed and analyzed on
cartographic mediums allowing the visualization of the
information for each geographical entity (region,
province, circle, township, district, etc.).

The digitalization of the cartographic mediums was the
first work undertook in the process of setting up the
GIS, and consisted in recording the maps of the
different division levels as digital cartographic files
including the real geographical coordinates.
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Setting up
Plotting of the coordinates
 The cartographic medium used to constitute the GIS
digital cartographic basis, which is the one of the
1994 census, does not include any geographical
coordinates; hence causing georeferencing
difficulties. That is why the first task to achieve was to
endow this medium with geographical coordinates.
 In urban areas, the superposition of the 1994 census
cartographic mediums, and the plans of restitution or
cities plans, permitted to put the geographical
coordinates (X,Y) of at least three distinct points, by
board, and that correspond to real reference marks.
 In farming areas, this operation consisted in reporting
the limits of the different geographical entities on
topographic papers.
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Setting up
The geographical data entry: The geographical data
entry was realized by the following processes:
 Scanning : transforming the analogical
cartographic mediums in raster files, using AO
format scanners.
 Digitalization : transforming the analogical
cartographic mediums in vector files, using
digitizing tables.
 Keyboard Data entry, notably with regard to the
toponymy and the symbols of the geographical
reference marks.
Georeferencing of the raster data
It consists in transforming raster data, entered
notably by scanner into data of vector type in the
Lambert cartographic projection system.
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Setting up
Conception of the geographical database
The previous stages have been achieved in an
environment that includes a software of automated
drawing engineering (Computer Aided Design)
combined with a computer application that assures
the link with the databases.
For the ambitions of the Statistics Directory in spatial
analysis, it has been judged appropriate to conceive
a system that includes, in a same basis, the geometry
as well as inherent data. The conception of such a
geographical basis is structured as layers of
information (points, lines or polygons).
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Setting up
Each of these layers corresponds to an administrative entity
(region, province, and township) or statistical (districts,
sectors of control, segments, douars, etc).
This operation requires the transfer of data from the CAD
files and their structuring according to the layers
composing the geographical database.
Data transfer
 Data transfer process, started after the realization of the
2004 census, adopts a methodological approach which
respects the geographical database structure and retrace
a priority order in the migration of information layers.
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Setting up
Some layers are already transferred, controlled and cleaned:
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Layer of the regions representing the administrative limits
of the 16 regions ;
Layer of the provinces :62 provinces and Prefectures;
Layer of the communes: 1.532 urban and rural
communes ;
Layer of the urban centers: 157 centers;
Layer of the census districts; 37.000 districts ;
Layer of the sectors of control: geographical zones
composed from 3 to 4 census districts;
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Setting up
Other data layers are now under transfer and integration in
the database:
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Layer of the segments which are parts of farming districts
(infra district);
Layer of the douars represented as points illustrating the
positioning of the farming localities.
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Achievements
Since its setting up, the GIS has enabled the Statistics Directory
to:
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Elaborate the requested digital maps to realize the Economic
Census of 2001 and its cartography;
Produce and disseminate the population main features in the
shape of a socio-demographic Atlas for the censuses of 1994
and 2004;
Produce the maps of the districts, sectors and supervision
zones, required for the realization of the Population and
Housing General Census of 2004 ;
Constitute the ground sampling units for the purpose of the
Master Sample ;
Contribute to update the poverty maps 2004.
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Difficulties
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Lack of recent and reliable geo-referenced maps,
sometimes causing the recourse to incompatible
cartographic mediums. This affects data quality,
especially the precision of the geographical
coordinates and the positioning of the limits of
administrative and statistical entities;
Difficult access to the digital cartographic files
belonging to the specialized departments in
cartography and geographical information;
Lack of coordination between the different
departments that are producing the geographical
information;
Shortage in skilled human resources for
geographical information processing.
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Conclusions
Despite the difficulties, and what GIS
implementation costs, our Department has
benefited from the new maps.
 They provide an essential control device that
guarantees consistency and accuracy of the
census.
 They support data collection and help monitor
census execution. Census takers and surveyors
can more easily identify their assigned set of
households.

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An example of urban district map
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An example of rural district map
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An example of control sector map
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Conclusions
Maps make it easier to present, analyze and
disseminate census results. The Statistics
Directory has published:
Census results, and Socio-demographic atlas,
 Poverty maps (regional, provincial,
communal,…)

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Thematic map : Socio-demographic atlas 2004
Population density by province
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Thematic map : Infant mortality by province 2004
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Poverty maps
A poverty rate for each commune
(urban and rural)
An estimated “Human Development
Index” for each commune;
An estimated “Social Development
Index” for each commune.
These Communal Poverty Rates
have been used to select the most
needy Communes for the “National
Human Development Initiative”
initiated in May 2005.
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Perspectives

Decentralization through the GIS at the level
of the 16 Regional Directories of the HCP.
This activity, placed in the forthcoming
census preparation, includes:
– Providing of hardware and software material;
– Transfer of regional files and databases to
Regional Directories (RD);
– Training of the staff of the RD;
– Technical assistance for the staff of the RD.
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Perspectives

Data conversion for the new environment: Up to
now, some layers are transferred: regions,
provinces, communes, districts and douars. Other
layers transfer is ongoing.
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Reinforcement of technical and professional
capability of the GIS staff through continuous
technical knowledge update.

Realization of a website permitting to provide users
with GIS geographical information online.
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Thank you very much
M. Mohamed BENKASSMI
High Commission of Planning,
Morocco.
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