In November 1931, the Colony of British Honduras was instructed to discontinue work on the census and to dismiss temporary clerks. This was due to financial deficiency resulting from the aftermath of the devastating hurricane, the Belize Hurricane, which struck the Colony on the 10th September 1931 with category 4 winds that killed an estimated 2,500 inhabitants. The census, which was conducted in April, had not been fully tabulated by the end of November when the census clerks were terminated from their posts. Therefore, the abstracts for this census are not as detailed as they should have been. Nevertheless, past records show that the population now stood at 51,347 (see Table 5). Conduct of the Census was resumed 15 years later in 1946.
Table 5
Population by sex
Census 1816-2010
| Year | Male | Female | Total | Rate of increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1816 | 3,824 | |||
| 1823 | 2,495 | 1,612 | 4,107 | 7.4% |
| 1826 | 3,958 | 1,695 | 5,653 | 37.6% |
| 1829 | 2,636 | 1,599 | 4,235 | -25.1% |
| 1832 | 2,850 | 1,687 | 4,537 | 7.1% |
| 1835 | 1,422 | 1,121 | 2,543 | -43.9% |
| 1861 | 13,789 | 11,846 | 25,635 | 908.1% |
| 1871 | 12,603 | 12,107 | 24,710 | -3.6% |
| 1881 | 14,108 | 13,344 | 27,452 | 11.1% |
| 1891 | 16,268 | 15,203 | 31,471 | 14.6% |
| 1901 | 19,140 | 18,339 | 37,479 | 19.1% |
| 1911 | 20,374 | 20,084 | 40,458 | 7.9% |
| 1921 | 22,564 | 22,753 | 45,317 | 12.0% |
| 1931 | 25,524 | 25,823 | 51,347 | 13.3% |
| 1946 | 28722 | 30498 | 59220 | 15.3% |
| 1960 | 44,659 | 45,846 | 90,505 | 52.8% |
| 1970 | 60,091 | 59,843 | 119,934 | 32.5% |
| 1980 | 73,617 | 71,736 | 145,353 | 21.2% |
| 1991 | 96,325 | 93,068 | 189,393 | 30.3% |
| 2000 | 125,065 | 123,851 | 248,916 | 31.4% |
| 2010 | 161,220 | 161,221 | 322,441 | 29.5% |
