The United Nations (ONU), from its very first years of existence, has published a series of international principles and recommendations to help national statistical agencies, all over the world, in the planning and improvement of population and household censuses. The first group of principles and recommendations was issued in 1958 at the United Nations Statistical Commission’s request as a reply to the necessity of developing international standards and as a starting point of the first World Population and Housing Census Programme.

For the 2020 Census Round, UN revised the Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Census (2017), including a highlight for the incorporation of statistical information by means of the Global Statistical Geospatial Framework.

The IBGE has strived to increase integration between statistics and geography, essential fields in the Institute, by adopting international good practices and principles. In this respect, some highlights are the geocoding of geographic areas used in the census operation, the Geographic Reference Chart for Production, Analysis and Dissemination of Statistics, the collection of geographic coordinates and addresses in a wide and systematized way, the creation of geospatial panels for data-collection monitoring and dissemination of information to users, among other initiatives.