Jordan’s population officially surpassed 12 million on Thursday, according to the official population clock issued by the Department of Statistics, nearly four and a half years after the population reached 11 million on October 1, 2021.
This comes as the government nears completion of the 2026 Population and Housing Census, in accordance with the General Statistics Law, which requires the census to be conducted once every ten years.
Director General of the Department of Statistics, Haider Freihat, said earlier this month that the number of households in Jordan is currently estimated at around 2.5 million families distributed across 12 governorates.
He explained that the statistical counting unit adopted by the department is the statistical block, with the Kingdom divided into 24,000 statistical blocks.
The department has completed the first phase of the census, known as the central update stage, followed by the packaging stage. It is currently implementing the third phase, the enumeration stage, which has reached about 15% completion and is expected to be finalized by the end of June.
Freihat noted that, for the first time in Jordan’s history, a “self-enumeration” experience will be introduced. Around one-quarter of the Kingdom’s population has been selected to participate, allowing willing households to fill in their data independently without a visit from a field researcher.
This will be done through an electronic form accessed via a QR code, with the data entry completed from inside the home.
He added that the final census will provide comprehensive and updated data on population size and distribution by governorate, population growth rates, demographic mobility, family size and characteristics, as well as the number and percentage of persons with disabilities, among other indicators needed by the state, planners, researchers, and universities.
