Manufacturing Census¶
Regional manufacturing statistics from South African industrial census publications.
Unit of Observation¶
TABLE 1 files are at magisterial district x industry. TABLE 2 and other files use broader statistical regions.
District Panel¶
Output: panels/manufacturing_district_panel.csv
- 2,054 rows across 7 census years (1963, 1970, 1972, 1976, 1979, 1982, 1985)
- 275 of 279 magisterial districts matched to the master roster
- 38 columns: district_id, year, manufacturing_total + 33 industry categories
Built by ops_admin/scripts/build_manufacturing_panel.py from TABLE 1 files. Afrikaans and English column names standardized. Heidelberg/Middelburg/Richmond disambiguation handled.
Source Files¶
23 CSVs in manufacturing_census/manufacturing_completed_converted/
| Content | Years | Files | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| TABLE 1 (establishments by industry by district) | 1963-1985 | 7 | Internally checked, April 2026: industry totals add up apart from small rounding differences |
| TABLE 2 (broader stats by district) | 1963-1985 | 7 | Good (4-6 column errors in 1976/1979) |
| TABLE A/B, TABLE 1.2-3.2 (multi-panel) | 1963-70 | 9 | Complex structure, not fully checked |
Key Variables¶
| Category | Variables |
|---|---|
| Geography | Magisterial district (TABLE 1) or statistical region (TABLE 2) |
| Structure | Number of establishments by industry |
| Industries | Food, beverages, tobacco, textiles, clothing, wood, furniture, paper, printing, leather, rubber, chemicals, minerals, basic metals, metal products, machinery, electrical, transport, other |
Internal checks (April 2026)¶
- TABLE 1 industry totals add up apart from 2–4 small rounding differences per file
- TABLE 1.2 col 12 national total confirmed wrong: 142,720 should be ~1,427,200
- TABLE 2 (1976, 1979): 4-6 genuine column errors out of 39 columns checked
Manufacturing Summary (extracted 2026-03-29)¶
1 markdown file with 1948-49 manufacturing summary statistics, extracted via Gemini Vision API (not page-checked).
Provenance¶
- Source: Census of Manufacturing / Statistics of Factory Production, Department of Statistics / CSS
- Digitization: Rao's Infocube (March 2013), including Principal Statistics on a Regional Basis 1972, 1976, 1979, 1982 and 1985. Status: internally checked, not page-checked
- Source PDFs:
raw_archives/01_production_censuses/manufacturing/source_pdfs/