The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) was established by Eurostat more than 30 years ago in order to provide a single uniform breakdown of territorial units for the production of regional statistics for the European Union.

The NUTS classification has been used in Community legislation since 1988, (1) but it was only in 2003, after three years of preparation, that a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the NUTS was adopted (2). From 1 May 2004, the regions in the 10 new Member States were added and from 1 January 2007 the regions of Bulgaria and Romania. A particularly important goal of the Regulation is to manage the inevitable process of change in the administrative structures of Member States in the smoothest possible way, so as to minimise the impact of such changes on the availability and comparability of regional statistics. Enlargements of the Union will render this objective all the more vital.

The purpose of this site is to present the NUTS classification in the form of lists and maps. It replaces the previous Eurostat NUTS publication, issued in August 2004, and includes administrative changes which have taken place since then. Previous changes to NUTS regions can be found in a document published by Eurostat in 2002, which describes all the changes in NUTS since 1981 (3).

The maps on this site are simply intended to enable the reader to locate the regions; the regional boundaries shown are also purely indicative. The scale used may differ depending on the country. The countries are in the official order, which is based on the spelling in the national language.

Since several regions within Europe have the same name, a distinction has been made by adding to each of these the abbreviation for the country concerned.

Some NUTS regions appear at several levels (example: Luxembourg appears as the country and at levels 1, 2 and 3). In this case, codes end in zero for the region with identical territory at the next lower level. The labels need not be identical at the different levels even if the territorial extent of the regions concerned is identical.

Depending on the variable concerned, regional statistical data at one or more of the three NUTS levels is available in publications and databases. Many variables and time series for regional data in different domains are available on the Eurostat website.

1) Council Regulation (EEC) No 2052/88 on the tasks of the Structural Funds: O.J. L 185 of 15 July 1988   

 2) Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 May 2003 on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) (Official Journal L 154, 21/06/2003) 

 3) European regional statistics. Changes in the NUTS classification 1981-1999  

[4]  Commission Regulation (EC) No 105/2007 of 1 February 2007 amending the annexes to Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS)  (Official Journal L 39, 10 February 2007). 

[5]  Regulation (EC) No 1888/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2005 amending Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) by reason of the accession of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia to the European Union (Official Journal L 309, 25 November 2005). 

[6] Regulation (EC) No 176/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 February 2008 amending Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) by reason of the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union (Official Journal L 061, 5 March 2008).