Istituto Nazionale di Statistica

The Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (Italian for "National Institute of Statistics", abbreviated "ISTAT") is Italy's public national statistical institute, based in Rome.

ISTAT was instituted by Italian law n.1162 of July 9 1926, then under the name of Istituto Centrale di Statistica ("Central Institute of Statistics"), in order to gather and organise data about the country. The decreto legge (decree law) n.322 of September 6 1989 restructured it and gave it its current name; it also created the Sistema Statistico Nazionale (Italian for for "National Statistical System", abbreviated "SISTAN"), of which ISTAT is a member along the statistical offices of various ministries, national agencies, and local governmental agencies (including regions, provinces, and comuni). The current president of ISTAT is Luigi Biggeri.

The remit of ISTAT includes administering every ten years the national census in the fields of population, industry and services, agriculture, as well as conducting particular surveys into specific fields of society (such as workforce, health, use of spare time, family composition, etc.). Gathered data is then organised, elaborated upon, and presented to both authorities and the public in various forms, including press releases, online databases, and books.