Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie, w zwięzły sposób, zagadnień związanych z organizacją, przebiegiem i opracowaniem wyników pierwszego spisu powszechnego ludności w Królestwie Polskim. Choć uwagę skupiono na ziemiach Królestwa Polskiego, znajdującego się wówczas pod panowaniem rosyjskim, to prezentowaną problematykę starano się omówić w szerszym aspekcie działalności władz centralnych w Petersburgu. W dorobku polskiej historiografii zagadnienia te poruszano jedynie w ograniczonym zakresie, a nieliczni autorzy zajmowali się przede wszystkim oceną kompletności danych spisowych.

The goal of the paper was to discuss the general census of 1897 in the Kingdom of Poland. The study describes its origin, the course of data collection and treatment of results, including decisions taken at the central level. The idea of a general census that would cover the territory of the whole Russian Empire with the area of ca. 22 million km² was discussed already in the 1860s and 70s. Eventually, the plan was executed in 1897. In the case of the Kingdom do Poland, which was formally one of the provinces of the Russian state, an active role in preparing the census was played by the authorities of individual guberniyas (governorates) as well as by the Warsaw Statistical Committee. The duty to  collect data lay with the administrative authorities at the lowest level, who were responsible, inter alia, for recruiting census representatives. The basic census form consisted of 14 questions. The main reservations about the reliability of the collected data concern the questions about the job position and age, and in the case of the data from the Kingdom of Poland, the falsification of results with regard to respondents’ religion and native language being also pointed out. When using the demographic data of the 1897 census, one should remember the abovementioned oversights or even errors that occurred both at the stage of collection and processing and subsequently the publication of statistical data. A critical research approach to the collected sources permits, however, an effective use of the abundance of the then collected information.