City statistics – introduction
Last updated: 5 November 2024.
Highlights
City statistics have grown in importance since the establishment of the Urban Agenda for the EU through the ’Pact of Amsterdam’ in 2016. Attention towards cities [1] is also 1 of the key aspects of cohesion policy 2021–27: 1 of its 5 objectives is to bring ‘Europe closer to citizens by fostering the sustainable and integrated development of urban, rural and coastal areas and local initiatives’.
This introductory chapter forms part of Eurostat’s City statistics manual.
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Introduction
In order to increase the availability and quality of data at a more disaggregated level, Eurostat has promoted and coordinated the efforts of national statistical offices in delivering harmonised city statistics, and disseminates the data on its website [2].
This manual intends to support this process; its objectives are twofold
- the first is to provide a common framework for defining the concept of a city and related terminology as well as glossary definitions for the variables within the city statistics data collection
- the second is to give data providers a clear description of the actions that national statistical offices need to implement in order to deliver city statistics and metadata to Eurostat.
The harmonised city definition and the definition of variables are discussed in Section 1. The collection of variables that make-up the city statistics data collection is the result of a continuous, collective, analytical process between the national statistical offices and Eurostat that takes account of data availability and statistical production processes. Consequently, the dataset is an evolving body of information, subject to change. The glossary provides a complete list of the variables that are available within the city statistics database, along with their definitions. The variables are organised into different domains, with links to related legislation.
Section 2 of the manual is devoted to the data collection process. It provides information on data formats, transmission and validation systems, as well as access requirements. Attention is also devoted to the metadata structure and content, as well as its transmission tools. References and links to access the data and metadata are made explicit in order to orient both data providers and users, helping them to find the statistical information they need.
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Notes
- ↑ Cities and functional urban areas have received legal recognition through Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council and in its corresponding implementing regulation Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1130 of 2 July 2019 on the uniform conditions for the harmonised application of territorial typologies pursuant to, OJ L 179, 3.7.2019.
- ↑ The data are available at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/cities/database.
- City statistics (urb), see:
- Cities and greater cities (urb_cgc)
- Functional urban areas (urb_luz)
- Perception survey results (urb_percep)