Reporter: Anne Barker

Mark Colvin: A few short years ago East Timor lost hundreds of thousands of people to death and deportation in the militia-led violence of 1999. But today there's a remarkable turnaround. Results from the first national census show a population heading for one million by next year - one of the fastest growing populations in the world.

And as Anne Barker reports, there's definitive proof that many of the 250,000 refugees forced out of the country have finally come home.

Anne Barker: It's a far cry from the bloody violence of 1999 that stripped East Timor of about one quarter of its entire population. Thousands killed and tens of thousands more forced over the border into West Timor.

But now, just two years since independence, the tiny nation is nearing one million people and has one of the highest birth rates in the world. Results from the country's first national census put the population at 925,000 – a 17.5 per cent increase since 2001.

And significantly, the areas registering the strongest growth of all point to a steady flow of refugees who've returned home. Dan Baker heads the UN Population Fund in Dili, which organised the census.

Dan Baker: One of the things that was really interesting that we found out was that the population growth rates were highest in the districts that bordered on Indonesia, and especially in Ocussi, which is the enclave surrounded by Indonesia.

For example, one district in Ocussi doubled its population, and that would indicate that those... a lot of those were people who had come back to their homes after they had been in camps in Indonesia, in West Timor.

Anne Barker: Do you know how many refugees are still in West Timor?

Dan Baker: There are some, the population of the refugee camps, however, is very, very much smaller than it was before, and it's very unlikely that very many of these people now will be coming back to Timor L'este. They will probably be trying to integrate into Indonesia.

Census Taker: We have total enumerators, not quite, it's about 2,700.

Anne Barker: The logistics of counting East Timor's population have been daunting. The rugged and remote terrain outside Dili has forced statisticians to find novel ways to reach every home in the country, from the presidential home of Xanana Gusmao to the tiniest wooden hut.

(census workers talking)

And in a world first, census workers have used satellite technology to record the locations of each and every one of the country's 194,000 households.

Dan Baker: And this is the first time that any country in the world has done it, and we feel quite confident that we've achieved a complete coverage of the country because we have all of these GPS readings.

Anne Barker: But for all its success, the census sounds a clear note of alarm for a country still struggling to provide for its people. Dan Baker says the high birth rate could put enormous strain on the country's meagre resources.

Dan Baker: This is a country where very high unemployment, very high poverty rates, and if the population is going to continue at this rate, so that in fact we cross the million mark some time next year, how is this country going to be able to provide jobs, education, and health for such a rapidly expanding population?

Mark Colvin: Dan Baker, from the United Nations Population Fund in Dili in East Timor ending Anne Barker's report.