About the Morris Census

The Morris Census is a collection of information from all morris sides in the UK and around the world, which provides a description of the state of morris dancing in the 21st century. The Census is an online survey sent out to all teams of morris dancers in the world to find out how many morris dancers are out there, who they are and what they get up to.
The first Morris Census was conducted in 2014, with three more conducted since then in 2017, 2020 and 2023.

The Morris Census is supported by the Morris Federation, Morris Ring and Open Morris through the Joint Morris Organisation and all member and non-member sides are encouraged to take part. Many thanks to the group of contributors who have helped over the years to design the survey and ensure it was sent to as many sides as possible.

You can contact Morris Census at [email protected]

​About the survey

You can find links to the full questionnaires below:

• 2023 questionnaire
• 2020 questionnaire
• 2017 questionnaire
• 2014 questionnaire

The privacy notice is here.

A report on the summary findings from the 2020 Morris Census is here.

Technical information

The Morris Census survey in 2023 was completed by 581 active sides based in the UK, out of a total of 767. The response rate was 76 per cent, higher than in any previous survey. The survey regularly achieves a response rate of two-thirds or more. Other sides from across the world also respond to the survey, but are not counted in the response rate as the total number of active sides cannot easily be measured.

Responses from UK-based sides are weighted for non-response using known information about all sides, namely the organisation they are a member of (Federation, Ring or Open) and their style of dance/performance. This ensures the findings are as representative as possible of all UK sides, even though some sides are less likely to respond than others.
​

Most survey responses were completed by one of the sides' officers. For example, just over half of responses were completed by the side's secretary, around a quarter by the side's captain and only around 13 per cent by a non-officer side member. This ensures the data is of high quality as it comes from knowledgeable members of sides.

Data availability

The privacy notice makes provision for de-identified raw data extracts to be made available for other researchers to analyse, where the proposed analysis is of benefit to the morris community. If you would be interested in accessing the data for research, please get in touch at [email protected].