The 1989 Soviet census (Russian: Всесоюзная перепись населения 1989, lit. '1989 All-Union Census'), conducted between 12 and 19 January of that year, was the final census carried out in the Soviet Union. The census found the total population to be 286,730,819 inhabitants.[1] In 1989, the Soviet Union ranked as the third most populous in the world, above the United States (with 248,709,873 inhabitants according to the 1990 census), although it was well below China and India.
^This is the total "de facto" population (nalichnoye naseleniye – наличное население); the "permanent" population (postoyannoye naseleniye – постоянное население) was about 1 million persons fewer. Over time, the State Statistics Committee changed its method of reporting population totals in censuses. In the 1959 and 1970 censuses, it used the permanent population; in 1979 and 1989 it used the de facto or present population. See Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver, "'Permanent' and 'Present' Populations in Soviet Statistics," Soviet Studies, Vol. 37, pp. 386–402, July 1985.