Modern household surveys increasingly provide information on subgroups as defined by content or regions. This kind of information, in general, is gained from censuses every ten years. Within the current European census round, some countries have decided to implement new methods which do not rely on a complete enumeration of the population. Switzerland and Germany, for example, are applying a register-assisted census. An exploitation of the register of residents is enriched with information gained from an additional sample. This sample also furnishes possible statistical corrections of the register. This change of paradigm in official statistics urges for adequate statistical methods. In a register-assisted census, additionally to efficient estimates at national level, reliable regional estimates are required. However, the disaggregation may result in very low sample sizes for some of the areas of interest. Whilst classical design-based methods will not produce reliable estimates for these areas, modern model-based small area methods may improve the quality of the estimates by far. The present work focuses on illustrating the small area estimation concepts and methods by two examples of recent research on register-assisted censuses. Additionally to two basic small area models, various recent extensions will be discussed. The successful application of these methods is of crucial importance for obtaining reliable regionalized statistics. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
