Whether you are new to ISI or a long-time member, I bet there are many things you don’t know about our history. Try answering these 10 trivia questions. If you get even half of them correct, consider yourself an ISI nerd! And no matter how many you get correct, I hope you learn something fun and interesting. Answers are at the end.
- There have been 65 meetings of the ISI, originally called “Sessions” and now called the World Statistics Congress, with the first one held in Rome in 1887 and the most recent one in The Hague in October 2025. What is the only city to have hosted 4 of these meetings? Bonus points for naming one or more of the four cities that have hosted 3 of them.
- The following quote appeared in a publication in 1897 that is still in existence and read by statisticians around the world today. What was the publication?
“The biennial session of the International Statistical Institute, which has recently been held at St. Petersburg, is the sixth meeting that has taken place since the foundation of the Institute in its present form in 1885... A special reason for selecting St. Petersburg for the present meeting lay in the fact that the census of the Russian Empire, the largest that has as yet been taken by bulletin as compared with list censuses, was to be taken early in the present year... No less than eleven nationalities were represented there by forty-one members of the Institute, namely, French 10, Russian 9, German 6, Austrian 5, British 3, Italian 2, United States 2, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Roumanian, 1 each.”
- Who was the first ISI president, and why was he appointed to that position?
- The following are titles of talks given at ISI meetings, one from each of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Match the title to the century in which the talk was given. Bonus points for naming the decade!
- “Report of the Committee on Agricultural Statistics and Production and Price of Cereals”
- “Research in Experimental Design in India: Achievements and Emerging Challenges”
- “Frequency of the Use of Contraceptive Methods and their Effectiveness as Used by a Sample of American Women”
- The ISI underwent major changes in 1947 following World War II and in conjunction with the establishment of the United Nations. One change was to allow the establishment of autonomous Sections, which later became Associations, and which could be joined whether or not one was a member of ISI. What was the name of the first “Section” and in what year was it established?
- Name all of the women who have been president of the ISI.
- In 1955 and 1956 no one from the United States was allowed to be elected to membership in the ISI. Why was this the case, and what did ISI do to change the situation?
- The first of the seven current ISI Associations was approved at the 38th Session of the ISI, in August 1971 in Washington DC., with its first activities taking place in 1973. Which Association was it?
- For most of its history, the only way to become a member of ISI was by being nominated and approved to be an “ordinary” elected member, an honorary member, or an ex officio member. Now, “everyone who shares the values and objectives of the ISI can join as a Regular member.” In what year did this change take place?
- What was the original name of the ISI, and when did it officially change to the “International Statistical Institute?”
Answers:
- Paris is the only city to have hosted four ISI “Sessions/World Congresses”, in 1889, 1909, 1961 and 1989. Cities that have hosted three times are London (1905, 1934, 1969), Rome (1887, 1925, 1953), Tokyo (1930, 1960, 1987), and Vienna (1891, 1913, 1973). For the full list of cities and years, see https://isi-web.org/scientific-congresses/past-wscs.
- The quote is from “Reviews and Notices (1897). Publications of the American Statistical Association, 5(40), 351–389,” the journal that changed its name to the Journal of the American Statistical Association in 1922. Detailed reports of ISI meetings were routinely published in ASA journals in the 19th and 20th centuries.
- The founding ISI president was Sir Rawson W. Rawson, who served from 1885 until the year of his death, 1899. He was the president of the Statistical Society of London (later the Royal Statistical Society) from 1884 to 1886. In 1885, he and the president of the Société de Statistique de Paris, Léon Say, brought together statisticians from around Europe for the silver jubilees of their respective societies, and at that meeting (in London) the ISI was born. Learn more here: https://isi-web.org/beginnings-isi, and see the list of all ISI presidents to date here: https://isi-web.org/isi-presidents
- 19th Century: Report of the Committee on Agricultural Statistics and Production and Price of Cereals, presented by Major Craigie, St. Petersburg, 1897.
20th Century: Frequency of the Use of Contraceptive Methods and their Effectiveness as Used by a Sample of American Women, presented by W. F. Willcox, Mexico City, 1933.
21st Century: Research in Experimental Design in India: Achievements and Emerging Challenges, presented by Professor Rahul Mukherjee, as the Mahalanobis International Award lecture, Marrakech, Morocco, 2017.
- Although the ISI agreed to have sections in 1947, the first one wasn’t established until 1957. It was called the Section on Municipal Statistics, and held its first conference in 1958 in Geneva. This Section does not exist anymore.
- As of 2026, of the 39 ISI presidents only two have been women – Denise Lievesley (UK; 2007 – 2009), and Helen MacGillivray (Australia; 2017 – 2019). We will have our third female president from 2027-2029: Nalini Ranvishanker.
- In the 1950s (and earlier) ISI had a quota for membership overall, and for number of members from any one country, which in 1955 was 35, amended to the larger of 1/8 of the number of ordinary members overall, or 35, whichever was larger. As reported in A History of the International Statistical Institute, 1885 – 1960:
“The rapid growth in membership from the U.S.A. brought the total membership of this country to the maximum of 35, and at the elections of 1955 and 1956 a candidate, though otherwise eligible, could not be elected for this reason. As this situation might mean that for some years to come no further cnadidate from the U.S.A. could be elected as ordinary members, and as there were many potentially qualified candidates, it was decided that members of 70 years of age and over should not be charged to the national quota of any country. This would, it was felt, remove the feeling among some older members that they should resign in order to make room for younger statisticians from their country. (p. 60)”
- The International Association of Survey Statisticians (IASS) was first. As reported in The American Statistician, Feb 1972, p. 12, “The International Statistical Institute approved the formation of a new Association, the International Association of Survey Statisticians, at its 38th Session, August 1971... The first formal activity of the Association will be to organize some sessions as part of the regular program of the next meeting of the International Statistical Institute in Vienna, August 1973.”
- The category of Regular member was introduced in 2011 at the 58th World Statistics Congress in Dublin, when the By-Laws and Statutes were substantially revised. The stated goal was “to attract younger members and more representation from low and middle income countries/regions.”
- The original name was the French version of the current name, L’Institut International de Statistique. Most of the early publications of ISI were in French. It wasn’t until 1948 that the name was officially given as The International Statistical Institute. In that year, English and French were adopted as the official languages of ISI. It wasn’t until 2011 that English was adopted as the sole official language.
I hope you enjoyed this ISI history lesson! To learn more, visit the History page at https://isi-web.org/history-isi, and make sure to click on the various links therein.
