This work started out quite modestly as an investigation into the geographic distribution of cerebrovascular disease. But one question soon led to another and it just growed, like Topsy. In fact, it is hard to characterize precisely what this should be called. It is in part a Review of the Literature, in part a critique and reworking of other publications, and in part a standard view of stroke epidemio logy in the more restricted sense of attack and mortality rates and distribution. Still the result would I hope provide a synthesis of the population features of stroke as they appear to me at this time - a highly individual interpretation of the "state of the art". I have studiously avoided any survey of the history of cerebrovascular disease, and citations are for those of most recent vintage appropriate to the situation. Literature in this field continues to burgeon; my references end with the Fall of 1967. When counting noses we must have numbers, so the reader will find a massive compilation of tables. They are however necessary, especially since so many of my statements seem to fly in the face of current orthodoxy, whether lay or medical. With the data, one may decide for himself their validity. Insofar as possible tables have been placed in the appendix. Unless an author is directly quoted by me, all interpretations of his data are my own and he should be held blameless.