Preliminary estimates of the size of the South African population, based on the population census conducted in October 1996, were issued by the CSS in July 1997. These indicate that there are fewer people (37,9 million) in the country, and that urbanisation (55%) has been more rapid, than was previously realised. The new census numbers may have an effect on some of the weights and raising factors that were used in this report, since these are presently based on projections of population and household size to 1995, using the 1991 census estimates as baseline. The new CSS management believes that the model used to adjust the actual count of people found in the 1991 census probably overestimated population growth rates in the country, hence overestimating the size of the population\nand number of households.The number of people, the number of households and the percentages reported here will therefore probably need to be modified at a later date when the CSS has more complete information about household size and distribution of the population by race and age from Census ‘96. Nevertheless, these overall trends should be accepted as indicative of the broad income and expenditure patterns of South African households during 1995.