World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision, CD-ROM Edition

ERRATA

World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision
CD-ROM Edition - Comprehensive and Extended Dataset
February 2006

This is to alert you to three errors, with limited scope, that occurred during the production of the Comprehensive and Extended Dataset of our CD-ROMs. Please see the description of the errors and how to obtain a corrected version of the three data files affected below. Please accept our apologies.

Description of the problems:

Three files need to be replaced because of problems found after the release of the CD-ROM.

1. The first error affects only one of the stock indicators (Dependency ratio) for the No-AIDS scenario, and is limited to the projected years 2010-2050. The Excel file with the problem is called "WPP2004_DB10_2_F5_DEPENDENCY_RATIO_NO_AIDS.XLS".

In this file, an error occurred when the projected data were transferred and all dependency ratios in the No-AIDS PROJECTION sheet were shifted down from one row and the column headers with the years were repeated wrongly downward.

2. The two remaining errors are located in the two ASCII files with annually interpolated population indicators, and are limited to data for the years 1950-1994. The two files are: “WPP2004_SUP_F2_Annual_Population_Indicators.CSV” and “WPP2004_SUP_F3_Annual Population Indicators_Percentage.CSV”. All others files, including all Excel files, are not affected.

In these two files, an aggregation error was introduced by inadvertently counting the open-ended age group 80 and over twice, but only for the years 1950-1994. This aggregation error affects the total population and all derived indicators that either use population counts or the age group of 80 and over. In short, the problem affects the following indicators:

In the file “WPP2004_SUP_F2_Annual_Population_Indicators.CSV, four indicators are affected (for the years 1950-1994):

Pop_80_100 Population age 80+ (thousands)
Pop_90_100 Population age 90+ (thousands)
PopTotal Total Population (thousands)
PopUrban Urban population (thousands)

In the file “WPP2004_SUP_F3_Annual Population Indicators_Percentage.CSV”, all the population indicators are affected for the years 1950-1994.

Remedy:

These three files have been corrected, and the revised versions are available at the links below:

Files in Excel format: DB10 No-AIDS mortality scenario (DB10_2_No-AIDS_Stock_Indicators)

WPP2004_DB10_2_F5_DEPENDENCY_RATIO_NO_AIDS.XLS

Dependency ratio by special aggregation and country, 1980-2050 (ratio of population 0-14 and 65+ per hundred population 15-64).

Files in database format: Interpolated_Annual_Indicators

WPP2004_SUP_F2_Annual_Population_Indicators.CSV (.zip compressed)	Interpolated total population by main age groups (medium fertility and AIDS mortality variant), Urban population, by major area, region and country, Annually for 1950-2050 (ASCII comma delimited data file with field names in header). See File Description.
WPP2004_SUP_F3_Annual Population Indicators_Percentage.CSV (.zip compressed)	Percentage total population by main age groups (medium fertility and AIDS mortality variant, Interpolated populations), Percentage urban population, and Population density, by major area, region and country, Annually for 1950-2050. (ASCII comma delimited data file with field names in header). See File Description.

Note: all compressed files in .zip format can be decompressed using the latest releases of WinZip software (http://www.winzip.com) or a free open-source software like 7-zip (http://www.7-zip.com).