Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics

"NUTS" redirects here. For the nuclear warfare strategy, see Nuclear utilization target selection. For other uses, see Nut.

The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics or Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics (NUTS, after the French nomenclature d'unités territoriales statistiques^{[citation needed]}) is a geocode standard for referencing the subdivisions of countries for statistical purposes. The standard is developed and regulated by the European Union, and thus only covers the member states of the EU in detail. The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics is instrumental in European Union's Structural Fund delivery mechanisms.

For each EU member country, a hierarchy of three NUTS levels is established by Eurostat; the subdivisions in some levels do not necessarily correspond to administrative divisions within the country. A NUTS code begins with a two-letter code referencing the country, which is identical to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code (except UK instead of GB for the United Kingdom). The subdivision of the country is then referred to with one number. A second or third subdivision level is referred to with another number each. Each numbering starts with 1, as 0 is used for the upper level. In case the subdivision has more than nine entities, capital letters are used to continue the numbering. A similar statistical system is defined for the candidate countries and members of the European Free Trade Association, but they are not technically part of NUTS governed by the regulations.

The current NUTS classification valid from 1 January 2008 until 31 December 2011 lists 97 regions at NUTS 1, 271 regions at NUTS 2 and 1303 regions at NUTS 3 level.

In addition to the full three levels for the European Union countries, all other countries have a NUTS code with a two-letter code for a continent and two numbers for the country, and for the USA, Canada and Australia the states, provinces, and territories are numbered separately. There are some anomalies: for example, Gibraltar is listed as being outside the EU with the code EO21; while French Guiana is listed twice, once in France as FR930 and once in South America as AS13. NUTS is thus in some extent similar to the ISO 3166-2 standard, as well as the FIPS 10-4 standard of the United States.

Levels

See also: First level NUTS of the European Union

NUTS-1

NUTS-2

NUTS-3

There are three levels of NUTS defined, with two levels of local administrative units (LAUs) below. These were called NUTS levels 4 and 5 until July 2003, but were officially abolished by regulation, although they are sometimes still described as such. Note that not all countries have every level of division, depending on their size. One of the most extreme cases is Luxembourg, which has only LAUs; the three NUTS divisions each correspond to the entire country itself.

Countries		NUTS 1		NUTS 2		NUTS 3
EU members	27		97		271		1303
Austria	AT	Groups of states	3	States	9	Groups of districts	35
Belgium	BE	Regions	3	Provinces (+ Brussels)	11	Arrondissements (Verviers split into two)	44
Bulgaria	BG	Regions	2	Planning regions	6	Oblasts	28
Cyprus	CY	—	1	—	1	—	1
Czech Republic	CZ	—	1	Oblasts	8	Regions	14
Germany	DE	States	16	Government regions (or equivalent)	39	Districts	429
Denmark	DK	—	1	Regions	5	Lands	11
Estonia	EE	—	1	—	1	Groups of counties	5
Spain	ES	Groups of autonomous communities	7	17 Autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities	19	Provinces + Islands + Ceuta and Melilla	59
Finland	FI	Mainland Finland, Åland	2	Large areas	5	Regions	20
France	FR	Z.E.A.T. + DOM	9	Regions + DOM	26	Departments + DOM	100
Greece	GR	Groups of development regions	4	Peripheries	13	Prefectures	51
Hungary	HU	Statistical large regions	3	Planning and statistical regions	7	Counties + Budapest	20
Ireland	IE	—	1	Regional Assemblies	2	Regional Authorities	8
Italy	IT	Groups of regions	5	Regions (Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol split into two)	21	Provinces	107
Lithuania	LT	—	1	—	1	Counties	10
Luxembourg	LU	—	1	—	1	—	1
Latvia	LV	—	1	—	1	Regions (+ Riga)	6
Malta	MT	—	1	—	1	Islands	2
Netherlands	NL	Groups of provinces	4	Provinces	12	COROP regions	40
Poland	PL	Regions	6	Voivodeships	16	Subregions	66
Portugal	PT	Continent (+ Azores and Madeira)	3	Regional Coordination Commissions + Autonomous regions	7	Groups of municipalities	30
Romania	RO	Macroregions	4	Regions	8	Counties + Bucharest	42
Sweden	SE	Regions	3	National areas	8	Counties	21
Slovenia	SI	—	1	Macroregions	2	Statistical regions	12
Slovakia	SK	—	1	Oblasts	4	Regions	8
United Kingdom	UK	Regions of England	9	Counties (some grouped); Inner and Outer London	30	Upper tier authorities or groups of lower tier authorities (unitary authorities or districts)	93
		Wales	1	Groups of unitary authorities	2	Groups of unitary authorities	12
		Scotland	1	Groups of unitary authorities or districts	4	Groups of unitary authorities or districts	23
		Northern Ireland	1	—	1	Groups of districts	5
Candidate countries	5		16		32		113
Croatia	HR	—	1	Regions	3	Counties	21
Iceland	IS	—	1	—	1	Capital area / Rest of country	2
Macedonia	MK	—	1	—	1	Statistical regions	8
Montenegro	ME	—	1	—	1	—	1
Turkey	TR	Regions	12	Sub-regions	26	Provinces	81
EFTA countries	3		3		15		46
Liechtenstein	LI	—	1	—	1	—	1
Norway	NO	—	1	Regions	7	Counties	19
Switzerland	CH	—	1	Regions	7	Cantons	26

Establishment

The NUTS-region are based on the existing national administrative subdivisions. In countries where only one or two regional subdivisions exist, or where the size of existing subdivisions is too small, a second and/or third level is created. This may be on the first level (ex. France, Italy, Greece, and Spain), on the second (ex. Germany) and/or third level (ex. Belgium). In smaller countries, where the entire country would be placed on the NUTS 2 or even NUTS 3 level (ex. Luxembourg, Cyprus, Ireland), levels 1, 2 and/or 3 are identical to the level above and/or to the entire country.

The thresholds in the table below are used as guidelines for establishing the regions, but they are not applied rigidly. For example, both Cornwall, population 531,600 in 2007, and Lombardy, with a population of nearly ten million, are NUTS 2 regions.

Level	Minimum	Maximum
NUTS 1	3 million	7 million
NUTS 2	800 000	3 million
NUTS 3	150 000	800 000

Examples

• DE: Germany
  • DE7: Hessen - The Bundesland as the top level subdivision of Germany
    • DE71: Darmstadt region - Regierungsbezirk as second level
      • DE71E: Wetteraukreis - Kreis as the third level
• AA: Asia
  • AA25: Thailand
• US16: Kansas

See also

• ISO 3166
• ISO 3166-1
• ISO 3166-2
• List of FIPS region codes
• Local administrative unit
• Regions of the European Union
• List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population
  • List of metropolitan areas (LUZ) in the European Union
  • List of the largest urban areas of the European Union

External links

• Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics - NUTS Statistical Regions of Europe
  • Hierarchical list of the Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics - NUTS and the Statistical regions of Europe
    • List of NUTS countries
    • List of EFTA countries
    • List of CEC countries
  • Overview maps of the NUTS and Statistical Regions of Europe
    • List of NUTS regions in EU-27
    • Overview map of EU Countries - Country level
    • Overview map of EU Countries - NUTS level 1
    • List of regions in EFTA
    • Overview map of EFTA countries - Country level
    • Overview map of EFTA countries - Statistical regions at level 1
    • List of regions in CC
    • Overview map of CC (Candidate countries) - Country level
    • Overview map of CC (Candidate countries) - Statistical regions at level 1
  • Correspondence between the NUTS levels and the national administrative units
  • Correspondence between the regional levels and the national administrative units (EFTA and CEC countries)
• NUTS, Publications Office, European Union, EU
  • List of current NUTS codes
  • Download current NUTS codes (ODS format)
• Administrative Divisions of Countries ("Statoids")