日本殖民統治期間，為了有效控制台灣人民與了解國勢，建立一套頗為完備的戶口調查制度，也先後在臺灣進行七次的臨時臺灣戶口調查工作。這些措施為台灣留下珍貴的人口資料。 本文擬以埔里地區的人口資料為例，說明《臺灣現住人口統計》、《臨時臺灣戶口調查統計》等人口統計資料，與戶政機關所保管的日據時期的《戶口調查簿》，如何運用於地方史的研究。 這些人口資料雖然都不算是新發現的史料，但是過去被運用的廣度與深度都略嫌不足。本文除了嘗試善用這些人口統計資料，整理出日據時期埔里地區的人口變遷與族群結構，也自行建構一套電腦輸入介面，對於日據時期的《戶口調查簿》進行一種新的研究嘗試。

During the early years of the colonial era, the Japanese authorities conducted a series of surveys and household registration efforts in order to enhance their control over Taiwan's population, which resulted in the compilation of valuable demographic sources. This paper uses Puli 埔里 as a case study to show how these works may be used in the study of colonial-era local history, especially the Statistical Data on the Population Currently Living in Taiwan (臺灣現住人口統計), Statistics from the Provisional Household Censuses on Taiwan (臨時臺灣戶口調查統計), Files of the Investigations on the Plains Aborigine Population and its History (熟蕃戶口及沿革調查綴), and the household registers (戶籍資料). Although these are not newly discovered works, they have yet to be fully utilized for the study of communal development. In this paper, I will rely on the above-mentioned demographic sources to study population changes and ethnic structures. I will also show how one can develop computer databases to better analyze the information in these works.