As some have said, "Lies, damn lies and
statistics." Taken to one
significant digit three of them would say that the population was
600,000, but the Germans would leave it at 500,000. :-)
Which, I think, goes to show that one sig. fig. is insufficient precision.
Also, it's interesting that you should mention that quote, since the
very point I was making about census results was actually that they
are *not* statistics. A statistic is a number calculated from a sample
of a population, the result of a census is just the actual number of
people (or whatever). I guess that means they're either lies or damned
lies...