Lokale Verwaltungseinheiten
To meet the demand for statistics at a local level, Eurostat maintains a system of local administrative units (LAUs) compatible with NUTS. These LAUs are the building blocks of the NUTS, and comprise the municipalities and communes of the European Union.
Until 2016, two levels of local administrative units (LAU) existed:
- the upper LAU level (LAU level 1, formerly NUTS level 4) were defined for most, but not all of the countries;
- the lower LAU level (LAU level 2, formerly NUTS level 5) consisted of municipalities or equivalent units in the 28 EU Member States.
Since 2017, only one level of LAU has been kept.
The LAUs are:
- administrative for reasons such as the availability of data and policy implementation capacity
- a subdivision of the NUTS 3 regions covering the whole economic territory of the Member States
- appropriate for the implementation of local level typologies included in Tercet, namely the coastal area and DEGURBA classification.
Since there are frequent changes to the LAUs, Eurostat publishes an updated list towards the end of each year.
The NUTS regulation makes provision for EU Member States to send the lists of their LAUs to Eurostat. If available, Eurostat receives additionally basic administrative data by means of the annual LAU lists, namely total population and total area for each LAU.
LAU components of cities and functional urbean areas
Historical population data from 1961 to 2011
This project, supported by the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, is a specific project that is independent from regular Eurostat population data collection. The data in this collection contain estimates that are not necessarily consistent with official Eurostat figures. Use of the data for non-commercial purposes is allowed, provided that all sources are adequately mentioned. In this data collection, European local administrative unit (LAU), population data has been complied for the period 1961-2011. The data collection covers EU Member States, EFTA countries and certain candidate countries. The spatial level of detail for most countries corresponds to the LAU 2-level, while Greece, Lithuania, Slovenia and Türkiye have LAU-1 coverage. The geoposition and population have been collected for 1 year in each decade. For the sake of comparability, data has been recalculated for the 2011 local administrative boundaries and interpolated for the following dates: 1 January of 1961, 1981, 1991, 2001, 2011. From the table below, you can download reports in PDF format and figures in Excel format (zipped files). The downloadable report ‘Population data collection for European local administrative units from 1960 onward’, describes the method used to compile the geo-referenced European LAU population data.