STATISTICS ON THE BLACK POPULATION IN MOST countries of the America are by no mean based on uniform criteria. The undifferentiated ii e of terms like Black. Afro American Creole Mulatto Garifuna Black-Indian, Afri can Negro, Afro East Indian Zambo, Bush Negro. Antillean N gro. and Black Caribcanleadtoseriou discrepancies. Brazil's cen us for example, Ii ts the black population at 5 84% while the Briwmica Yeathook places it at 33 with similarly drasti jt gaps for Panama and the Dominican Repnbli Ecuador 573 1:147 Classification may depend on the per eption of th interviewee the interviewer, or the bureauc ts who deal n the categories. In many countries lighter mulattos often describe themselves as white while blacks identify them elves as mulat- tns or mestizos More often than not the word mestizo is taken to mean a tniictur of white and Native Amen an, even when the p rsons d cnbing themselves a such ha e e ident African ancestry. Due to one or more 01 these factors, the last census in s 194 223 72.0 85.0 Argentma, for example. concluded that the country had no black population at all. Some countries, including St. Lucia and St Vmcent and the G enadines, have no primary sources of data state sponsored or private. In Cuba and Costa Rica the data is not a cc ible to the public. Colombia and the Domincan II public do not meastire St Vincent & Gren. 94 105 84.5 95.0 ethnicity. even though passports and other identification cards not 'color" International institutions often do not assify people b ethni group, as is theta e with the United Nation What the following table presents, then, are ballpark figures the smallest and the largest numbers from existing records taking as a base the information in th Britannica Yearbook, yenfied wherever pos ible with official our An aMen k ( Chile * * indicates that the presence of blacks ts acknowledged but no figures are gi en. two asterisk ( ) indicates that no figures are available.
