Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Union

E.4: Regional Statistics and Geographical Information

European Commission, 2920 Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG

Total Surface Area (TSA)  – Total Surface Area is defined as the area of any given statistical area and includes land area and inland waters (lakes, rivers etc.). The sub-national areas (e.g. LAU and NUTS areas) defined by statistical and/or administrative boundaries are the building blocks for calculating both concepts. By definition Total Surface Area does not cover areas that are not statistical areas.
Total Land Area (TLA) is defined as TSA excluding lakes, rivers, transitional and coastal waters. Mountainous regions, glaciers, forests, wetlands and other tempoarily or permanently uninhabitable regions are included in TLA.
Both TSA and TLA are provided per Member State and for all statistical units from NUTS level 1 to NUTS level 3.
TSA and TLA are the denominator in area based indicators, such as population density.

A more generalised version (scale 1: 1 000 000) of the NUTS areas than used for the calculation of TSA and TLA can be downloaded from the Eurostat website http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/reference-data/administrative-units-statistical-units/nuts

Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS 2013, NUTS 2016, NUTS 2021)

Not applicable - Area information is a cross-cutting and fundamental statistics on the size of areas and is a basis for various other statistics such as population statistics and land use statistics, where densities are calculated.

Total Surface Area (TSA) statistics provides for every version of the NUTS the areas of statistical units at all NUTS levels in the countries listed in 3.7.
Total Land Area (TLA) is TSA excluding lakes, rivers, transitional and coastal waters.

The statistical units are the statistical areas in each country, starting at the national level and down to NUTS level 3 and equivalent statistical areas (see 3.7).

See 3.7 Reference area.

TSA and TLA are disseminated by single country, by region and by aggregates of countries, as follows:
a) The Member States of the European Union and their regional structure as defined in the Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics
b) The EU candidate countries and their agreed Statistical Regions following the same rules as the Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics
c) The EFTA countries and their agreed Statistical Regions following the same rules as the Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics
d) Other countries: Andorra, San Marino.
For details on geographical changes over time see the notes by country under 15.2 Comparability over time.

National refers to the territory of a Member State within the meaning of Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 applicable at the reference time.

Regional refers to NUTS level 1, NUTS level 2 or NUTS level 3 as defined in the Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 and available according to the classification in force at the reference time; where this term is used in connection with countries that are not members of the European Union, "regional" means the Statistical Regions at level 1, 2 or 3, as agreed between those countries and the Commission (Eurostat), at the reference time.

Data from 1999 to 2017 refer to the NUTS 2013 version, data from 2018 to 2020 refer to NUTS 2016 version and data from 2021 refer to NUTS 2021 version.

Data refer to the NUTS 2013, NUTS 2016 and NUTS 2021. However this does not represent a time series as unchanged areas have the same area and changed NUTS areas cannot be compared over time.

km²

Validity of the NUTS classification the data refer to.

Data from 1999 to 2017 refer to the NUTS 2013 version, data from 2018 to 2020 refer to NUTS 2016 version and data from 2021 refer to NUTS 2021 version.

Commission Regulation (EU) No 868/2014 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) (legislation reflects the obsolete NUTS-2013 classification)

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1319/2013 of 9 December 2013 amending 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) (legislation reflects the obsolete NUTS-2013 classification)

Commission Regulation (EU) 2016/2066 of 19 December 2016 amending 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) (legislation reflects the NUTS-2016 classification)

Commission Delegated Regulation 2019/1755 of 8 August 2019 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) (legislation reflects the NUTS-2021 classification currently in place)

Data produced by Eurostat, potential corrections are provided by Member States on their initiative, data sharing on voluntary basis.

Data are not confidential.

Not applicable

Publication of the NUTS areas on the Eurostat website ~14 months after the entry into force of the NUTS regulation.
Calculation of TSA and TLA ~18 months after the entry into force of the NUTS regulation.
Consultation with NSI ~24 months after the entry into force of the NUTS regulation.
Publication in Eurobase ~26 months after the entry into force of the NUTS regulation.

Not available

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

New data are disseminated every three years (in line with the update frequency of the NUTS classification).

The data disseminated for reference year Y+1 and Y+2 (where Y is the year when the NUTS classification changed) are identical to the data in year Y.

No news release.

Not planned.

Eurostat’s Data Navigation Tree, code reg_area3.

Not applicable

Not applicable

EC, 1999, Recommendations for a harmonised definition of calculation of surface area of territorial units, ISBN: 92-828-7264-5

See documentation on GISCO website  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/overview

Eurostat calculates the data and requests confirmation from NSI. NSI may correct figures according to national data and area delineation practices. Eurostat accepts national corrections provided NSIs document their national data and practices.

The main factor that determines the quality of the TSA figures is the scale of the Administrative Boundary Data as provided by Member States as part of the EuroBoundaryMap© (EBM) product of EuroGeographics. The nominal scale is 1:100 000. Eurostat compared these data for the Netherlands to larger scale data available from NL as open data. Differences in area size were small (<0.01%). Eurostat therefore assumes that the scale of 1:100 000 is sufficient for reliable data. Differences between Eurostat figures and national figures are usually due to a different coverage (ommissions or additions) of national data compared to EBM. Typical examples are the treatment of estuaries and coastal areas. As Eurostat discussed and where necessary corrected differences with Member States' data in several iterations the TSA data is of high quality.
The additional determining factor for the quality of TLA is the classification and delineation of inland waters. Eurostat uses CORINE data for this purpose which has a Minimum Mapping Unit of 0.25km² and as a result tends to omit many small water bodies. Eurostat therefore assumes that CORINE data underestimate the real water areas and as a result TLA is overestimated.
Water area information in Member States is typically much more accurate than CORINE. National data tend to inclulde more water areas and as a result national TLA figures tend to be systematically lower than Eurostat's figures. As a result figures of those countries that corrected Eurostat's TLA figures are considered of high quality. For the other countries the figures are considered of medium quality.
Treatment of inland waters varies between countries and as a result corrected data are not always comparable with each other and with uncorrrected data. However Eurostat estimates that the maximum relative error between Eurostat TLA and Member States TLA is <3% based on corrected national figures.

TLA and TSA are used for area based statistics such as population densities or land use and land cover statistics. They are also essential for ecosystem accounting, land accounts, forest accounts etc.

No user' satisfaction survey has been carried out.

Complete for EU, EFTA, UK and Candidate Countries.

Systematic and random error can be generated by the available input data: the EuroBoundaryMap© (EBM) product of EuroGeographics at nominal scale 1:100 000 and CORINE land cover at nominal scale 1:100 000. Bias is introduced by the Minimum Mapping Unit of CORINE of 0.25km² for water areas which results in underestimation of water areas due to omission.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Publication of the NUTS areas on the Eurostat website ~14 months after the entry into force of the NUTS regulation.
Calculation of TSA and TLA ~18 months after the entry into force of the NUTS regulation.
Consultation with NSI ~24 months after the entry into force of the NUTS regulation.
Publication in Eurostat database ~26 months after the entry into force of the NUTS regulation.

Production can only start when NUTS areas become available as geospatial data which is typically ~14 months after the entry into force of the NUTS regulation. So for NUTS 2021, geographical data became available at the beginning of 2021. Actual calculation of TSA and TLA requires 2 months, but consultation with Member States requires another 6 months to be completed. As a result for any given NUTS, figures become available in Eurostat database ~26 months after after the entry into force of the NUTS regulation.

Not applicable as first time data provision.

TSA data are coherent. TLA data are coherent for countries with uncorrected figures. Countries with corrected TLA figures might use data with different specifications which could result in different selection criteria of water areas. As a result TLA might not be fully comparable between countries.

On the other hand countries which provided national figures ensure coherence with national TSA and TLA information.

Comparability over time is possible only for areas without changes between NUTS versions.

The changed areas with different codes should not be compared. In general, TSA and TLA do not represent a time series.

No other statistical data sources exist. Discrepancies between national data and EU data have been reconciled in consultation with Member States.

Fully coherent as based on official geospatial information covering the full territory of all Member States and countries concerned.

Not applicable - data are calculated in Eurostat and by NSIs with internal resources.

The general Eurostat revision policy applies to this domain.

Data are revised in accordance with changes of the NUTS classification or according to data revisions or methodological changes implemented by the National Statistical institutes or other bodies.

All reported errors (once validated) result in corrections of the disseminated data. Reported errors are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated.

Data may be published even if they are missing for certain countries or flagged as provisional or of low reliability for certain countries. They are replaced with final data once transmitted and validated for entering new or replacing provisional data exist.

European aggregates are updated for consistency with new country data. Whenever new data are provided and validated with a new NUTS release, the already disseminated data are updated.

Official geospatial data provided by EuroGeographics for the NUTS versions. For TLA CORINE data made available by the European Environment Agency. After checking the initial figures provided by Eurostat for each reference year the following countries decided to make corrections based on national, more accurate data sources:

NUTS 2013: The following countries decided to make corrections based on national, more accurate data sources: AT, BE, CY, CZ, DE, DK, EE, FI, HR, IT, LU, MT, LU, LT, LV, PL, PT, RO, SK, SL, SE, UK, LI, MK, ME. The following countries accpeted the figures provided by Eurostat as they were:  BG, EL, ES, FR, IE, HU, NL, CH, NO.

NUTS 2016: The following countries had a change in the NUTS revision from 2013 to 2016: DE, FI, FR, HU, IE, LT, NL, PL, UK. From these countries the following countries decided to make corrections based on national, more accurate data sources after checking the initial figures provided by Eurostat: DE, FI, LT, UK. The following countries accepted the figures provided by Eurostat as they were: FR, HU, IE, NL, PL.

Data are produced for each revision of the NUTS, i.e. every three years.

1) Calculation for all MS data in Eurostat, 2) consultation with NSIs, 3) Correction of Eurostat data where applicable

Controls are carried out with regard to previous values and by checking results with NSI data.

For TSA, not applicable.

TLA = TSA excluding water areas.

Consultation with NSIs and correction of Eurostat data where applicable.

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