The Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (SO SR)

Dissemination and Communication Directorate

Product Portfolio and Communication Department

Lamačská cesta 3/C

840 05 Bratislava 45

The main aim is the collection of comparable quantitative data on the quality of life in European cities providing information on the dynamics within the cities and with their surroundings.

 The list of variables is defined for the project. Indicators are derived from variables. Data has been collected on four spatial levels:

• City (C), the basic level
• Functional Urban Area (FUA), consists of the city and its commuting zone (formerly known as Larger Urban Zone - LUZ)
• Greater City (K), the case, the urban centre stretches far beyond its boundaries (formerly known as Kernel)
• Sub-City District (SCD), a subdivision of the city according to population criteria

Specific classification and coding systems have been developed for the spatial units and for the variables and indicators.

Classification system for the spatial units

The city code consists of:

• CC 2-digit country code
• CCxxx 3-digit city code
• CCxxxC for City
• CCxxxK for Greater City
• CCxxxL for Functional Urban Area
• CCxxxDzz for Sub-city district level 1
• CCxxxDzzyyy for Sub-city district level 2

Each Sub-City district has the city code plus a unique number afterwards to identify the individual Sub-City District within the city. Some cities have 2 sub-city levels. For this reason, 5 extra positions are used for sub-cities. The total length of the sub-city code is 11 characters.

Classification for the spatial units in Slovakia - example

Classification system for the UA variables

Variables are the raw data collected by the national statistical offices . 

Example:

DE1040V Population on the 1^st January,0-4 years, total

Domain  code DE

Number of variable DE1040

V (for variable) DE1040V

Classification system for the UA indicators

The variable data serves as the raw data for the calculation of the indicators. Indicators are labelled in a similar way to variables, except that the names end with an I to identify them as indicators.

Example:

DE1040I Proportion of population aged 0-4 years

Domain  code DE

Number of variable DE1040

I (for indicator) DE1040I

Indicators and variables cover several aspects of quality of life, as follows demographic statistics, social conditions, economic aspects, education and training statistics qualifications, environmental statistics, transport and travel patterns, and culture and recreation, tourism statistics.

Selected variables are collected centrally by Eurostat.                                                           

The complete list of indicators and variables is available online, in the City Statistics Manual.

Detailed information on concepts and definitions used in the project are available in the City Statistics Manual.

Information on deviating concepts and definitions used for some variables, see Part 18 Statistical processing.

Cities represent the basic level of data collection.

Criteria for the selection of cities:

• cities in each country should represent about 20% of the population in that country
• geographical distribution within the country (peripheral, central)
• coverage should include cities with more than 50.000 inhabitants
• data comparability
• data availability

For Slovakia,  in total 8 regional capitals are included in the project. Four cities (Bratislava, Košice, Banská Bystrica, Nitra) are involved in the project since 2003. Other four cities (Prešov, Žilina, Trnava, Trenčín) were added in the list of cities in 2006.

All eight cities are regional capitals of NUTS 3 regions. 

FUA of the capital Bratislava copies the boundaries of the NUTS 3 region, FUAs for other seven cities are defined at the district level (LAU 1 level). Districts are maintained as statistical units, the data availability is higher.

Spatial units of Slovak cities in the project 

Data are available since 2001 to 2019 (by reference years of collection rounds).

For some variables, historical data were provided for reference years 1991 and 1996.

Not applicable.

The unit of measurement is included in the label.

Reference years for the main data collections: 2001, 2004, 2008, 2011 

Reference years for the "historical" data collection: 1991, 1996 

Selected variables have been collected on annual bases for the period 2005-2012.

Since 2012 data are collected on annual basis.

Visit the Portal to European Union Law.

All data supply of city statistics is based on a voluntary agreement, as there is no Community legislation yet on this topic http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm.

Not applicable.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Act on State statistics No. 540/2001 as amended – the national act regulating conditions for collecting statistical data and statistical information necessary for the assessment of the socio-economic development, position and competencies of the bodies gathering State statistics, the tasks of the public authorities in the field of State statistics, the rights and duties of reporting units, the protection of confidential statistical data against misuse, the provision and disclosure of statistical data, the ensuring of the comparability of statistical information and the fulfilment of commitments arising from international treaties in the field of State statistics binding for the Slovak Republic.

Act on State statistics No. 540/2001 as amended, Part Five Dissemination of statistical information.

Since 2017, validated data are published in the Eurostat database the first day of every month.

Not available.

Eurostat database, see General and regional statistics/City statistics.

Since 2012, the periodicity of data collection is on the yearly basis.

The database is updated continually the first day of every month, depending on the data availability of new and revised data.

Not available.

Data on city statistics disseminated also in the publication, released in 2020, Regional cities from the perspective of quality of life

The promotional poster Living in regional cities in 2018

All data collected in the project are available in the Eurostat database, see General and regional statistics/City statistics

For national users the city statistics from the data collection is available also in the national database http://datacube.statistics.sk/#!/folder/sk/1001470

Not available.

Publications prepared by Eurostat

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/cities/publications

Cohesion reports prepared by DG Regio

http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/index.cfm/en/information/publications?title=&themeId=0&typeId=14&countryId=0&periodId=0&fundId=0&policyId=0&languageCode=en

Detailed information on concepts and definitions used in the project are available in the City Statistics Manual.

Not available.

Detailed information on concepts and definitions used in the project are available in the City Statistics Manual.

Information on deviating concepts and definitions used for some variables in Slovakia see item 18 Statistical processing.

Quality is assessed on a regular basis. The assessment is summarized in final reports.

The collection of quantitative data on the quality of life in European cities. 

Not available.

Availability of data differs among domains.

Most variables are available at city level. Selected variables were compiled only for two cities, the capital Bratislava and Košice. Due to special administrative breakdown two biggest Slovak cities have higher data availability compared to other 6 smaller regional cities.

• Domains with data fully available

Demography, Nationality, Health, Crime, Economic activity, Water, Waste management, Culture and recreation, Tourism

• Domains with data partly available

In some domains data only for selected variables were available: Housing, Education qualification, Travel patterns.

• Domains with data not available

Household structure, Labour market, Income disparities and Poverty

Data for these domains are available from sample surveys, not designed for the municipal level. For surveys, the NUTS 3 level is the lowest available regional level.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Depends on the domain and individual variables. As a general rule, timeliness is about 24 months.

Timetable is planned for every collection round. In some cases a time lag between the actual delivery of the data and the target date when it should have been delivered can occur.

The main aim is to achieve as highest data comparability as possible. 

There were no changes in the spatial units for Slovak cities since the beginning of the project, the spatial comparability of city data is ensured.

Most data are comparable over time. Where the comparability is not ensured, flags and notes are added in the data file.

Data collected at the sub-national level are coherent with the data collected at the national level.

Internal coherence (e.g. between spatial levels, between indicators such as total, male, female population) is ensured through the application of validation controls.

The data collection is mostly based on data available in the statistical surveys of the SO SR. A small amount of data is requested from ministries and administrative sources, mainly citiy authorities and other organizations.

Preliminary data is published in some domains: health data (deaths by diseases), registers data. Definitive data are stored in the database, once they are available.

Data revision is made in case of availability of definitive data for domains with preliminary data. In case of detected errors, data is validated and transmitted to the database.

In case of data revisions due to better data sources or methodology, data are sent to database with the information about the revision.

Data collected by the SO SR statistical surveys are the main datasource. Some variables are collected only from the censuses; some of them were obtained from sample surveys. Some variables are estimated.

 Other data sources:

• Ministry of Interior, Presidium of the Police Force (data on crime, private cars)
• Ministry of Culture of the SR, National Culture Centre (data on culture)
• Ministry of Health of the SR, National Health Information Centre (data on causes of deaths)
• Slovak National Association of Real Estate Agencies (housing prices until 2018)
• Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Authority of the Slovak Republic (housing prices since 2019)
• Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the SR, Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (data on education)
• Water Management Research Institute, regional water-supply system companies (data on water)
• regional public health authorities (data on swimming pools)
• city transport companies (data on transport)
• city authorities

Data is collected annually, but selected variables are available only in census years.

Variables are compiled from the statistical surveys of the SO SR, ministries, city authorities and administrative sources. Some data has been estimated.

The collection process starts with the review of definitions and methodology, defining all deviated definitions compared to the City Statistics Manual.

All data are checked internally. 

The overview of compiled data by domains, including deviating definitions:

Demography and nationality

Subdomains fully covered with available data at all required levels, data provided from demographic statistics.

Until 2010, population data is on 31 December.

The 2011 data are from the population census (on 21 May).

Since 2012 population on 1 January (data on 31 December stored as 1 January data the following year).

In line with population data the variable median age and nationality variables are also provided on 1 January.

Household structure

Data are collected from the census. The recommended data source, labour force sample survey, is not used because of the low reliability sample at the city level. 

Housing

Subdomain partly covered with available data.

Housing prices until the year 2018 were provided from the Slovak price map compiled by the Slovak National Association of Real Estate Agencies. Only data on all FUAs and for two cities Bratislava and Košice were provided. There was definition deviation - average price for buying a house or apartment per m². Data coverage was not exhaustive, not all transactions are included, only transactions realized by entities associated in the Slovak National Association of Real Estate Agencies, that is the reason of volatility of data.

In 2021, the SO SR launched to use a new data source, the database of the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Authority of the Slovak Republic in the calculation of price indices. The database contains real estate prices from all transactions in the given quarter. Realization price indices of residential real estate are calculated on a quarterly basis, broken down into new and existing real estate. Data since 2019 are available for all cities. 

Number of conventional dwellings - 2011 data are from the population census (on 21 May 2011). The census data is the basis and is balanced yearly by the statistical data from the reporting of building authorities on decreases and increases of the number of dwellings for the reference year.  

Health

Subdomain fully covered, data provided from the demographic statistics.

Crime

Subdomain fully covered, data provided from the regional directorates of the Presidium of the Police Force.

Labour Market

Data not available at the city level. The lowest level is NUTS 3 level. The LFS survey is not used because of the low reliability sample at the city level. LFS data available only for FUA of the capital Bratislava and the national level.

Economic Activity

Subdomains fully covered with available data at all required levels for selected years. In 2011 economic activity variables were compiled from the census. Since 2016 a business register was used for estimation of all variables in the subdomain. Definitive data from the register are with a yearly delay, due to that provisional data are used (flagged in the database).   

Income disparities and Poverty

Data not available at the city level. The lowest level is NUTS 3 level. The EU SILC survey data is available only for FUA of capital Bratislava and national level.

Education and Training Provision

Subdomain partly covered with available data.

Early leavers are provided from the LFS survey, available in the database since 2012 at the national level and for the FUA of the capital Bratislava.

Children aged 0-4 in day care, data provided from the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information.

Definition deviation - data provided include all children only in those day care institutions (public, church or private) under the administration of the Ministry of Education of the SR. Data is surveyed at the beginning of the given school year, not as an average of the whole school year.

Educational qualification

Data on educational structure of the population is surveyed only from the census.

Water and waste management

Subdomain fully covered with available data at all required levels. Data on total use of water is provided from the Water Management Research Institute and the average prices from the regional water-supply system companies.  

Municipal waste data is provided from the statistical surveys of the SO SR.

Travel and Transport

Subdomain partly covered. Data on registered private cars are provided by the Presidium of the Police Force of the SR. Data up to 2004 is reported as of 31 December, since 2006 data is on 1 January of the reference year. National data up to 2010 included all passenger cars (marked with flag “D”), since 2011 indicator includes only registered private cars. 

Deaths in road accidents, data provided from the Presidium of the Police Force. There is the definitiondeviation - persons who died in the place of accident or when being transported to hospital, or within the 24 hours after the accident. All other persons are registered as seriously injured persons. Police data is not complemented by the hospital data.

Cost of taxi ride – data is provided form the statistics of consumption prices of the SO SR. 

Culture and Recreation

Subdomain fully covered, provided by the Ministry of Culture. Data on the number of seats in cinemas exclude the seats of summer/open air cinemas.

Data on the number of museum visitors up to 2014 represented visitors of all expositions in the city, including those who visited city exposition operated abroad. Due to methodological change data since 2015 are in line with the definition in the manual.  

Tourism

Subdomain fully covered, data provided form the statistical surveys of the SO SR. City data up to 2011 were provided without campsites, at national level up to 2012. Since 2012 data is harmonized by the manual definitions.

Not available.

Not applicable.