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The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) was established by the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat), in co-operation with the Commission's other departments, so as to provide a single, uniform breakdown of territorial units for the production of Community regional statistics. Although the NUTS has no legal value per se, it has been used since 1988 in the Community legislation and is referred to in the Council Regulation (EEC) N° 2052/88 on the tasks of the Structural Funds (OJ 185 of 15 July 1988).
The NUTS nomenclature was created and developed according to the following principles:
1.The NUTS favours institutional breakdowns.
Different criteria may be used in subdividing national territory into regions. These are normally split between normative and analytic criteria:
For practical reasons to do with data availability and the implementation of regional policies, the NUTS nomenclature is based primarily on the institutional divisions currently in force in the Member States (normative criteria).
2.The NUTS favours regional units of a general character.
Territorial units specific to certain fields of activity (mining regions, rail traffic regions, farming regions, labour-market regions, etc.) may sometimes be used in certain Member States.
NUTS excludes specific territorial units and local units to the benefit of regional units of a general nature.
3.The NUTS is a five-level hierarchical classification (three regional levels and two local levels).
Since this is a hierarchical classification, the NUTS subdivides each Member State into a whole number of NUTS 1 regions, each of which is in turn subdivided into a whole number of NUTS 2 regions and so on.
At the regional level (without taking the communes into account), the administrative structure of the Member States generally comprises two main regional levels (länder and Kreise in Germany, régions and départements in France, Comunidadades autonomas and provincias in Spain, standard regions and counties in United Kingdom, regioni and provincie in Italy, etc.).
The grouping-together of comparable units at each NUTS level involves
establishing, for each Member State, a regional level additional
to the two main levels referred to above. This additional level
therefore corresponds to a less important or even non-existent
administrative structure, and its classification level varies
within the first three levels of the NUTS, all depending on the
Member State: NUTS 1 for France, Italy, Greece and Spain, NUTS
2 for Germany and the United Kingdom, NUTS 3 for Belgium, etc.
The NUTS nomenclature serves as a reference:
1. For the collection, development and harmonisation of Community regional statistics.
During the 1970s, the NUTS gradually replaced the specific divisions used in the various statistical domains (agricultural regions, transport regions, etc.), and it was on the basis of NUTS that the regional economic accounts were developed and the regional sections of the Community surveys were defined.
2. For socio-economic analyses of the regions.
At the same time as establishing a correlation between regions in terms of size, the NUTS also provides three analysis levels. The 1961 Brussels Conference on Regional Economies, organised by the Commission, found that NUTS 2 (basic regions) was the framework generally used by Member States for the application of their regional policies and was therefore the appropriate level for analysing regional-national problems, whereas NUTS 1 (major socio-economic regions grouping together basic regions) should be used for analysing regional-Community problems, such as "the effects of customs union and economic integration of areas at the next level down from national areas". NUTS 3, which broadly comprises regions which are too small for complex economic analyses, may be used to establish specific diagnoses or to pinpoint where regional measures need to be taken.
3. For the drawing up of Community regional policies.
For the purposes of appraisal of eligibility for aid from the Structural Funds, regions whose development is lagging behind (regions concerned by Objective 1) and the Nordic regions whose population density is extremely low (regions concerned by Objective 6) have been defined on the basis of NUTS 2.
The areas eligible under the other priority Objectives have mainly been classified by reference to NUTS 3 level.
The periodic report on the social and economic situation and development
of the regions of the Community, which the Commission is required
to prepare every three years pursuant to Article 8 of Council
Regulation (EEC) n° 4254/88 concerning the European Regional
Development Fund, has so far mainly been prepared at NUTS 2.
Four NUTS versions are maintained in the GISCO information system, version 5, 6, 7 and 8. The NUTS version 5 nomenclature (1992-1994) was established after the unification of Germany in 1990 resulting in the creation of 5 new Bundesländer (and thus new territorial units in the nomenclature). NUTS version 5 subdivides the economic territory of the European Union into 71 regions at NUTS 1, 183 at NUTS 2 and 1044 at NUTS 3.
The NUTS nomenclature, version 6 was established in 1995: in addition to the introduction of the Union's three new Member States (Austria, Finland and Sweden), this version includes the administrative changes which have been taken place since 1992:
Furthermore, a certain number of modifications have been made to the code. Its structure remains unchanged, but the first two characters, previously R1, R2, .... have been replaced by the ISO Alpha 2 code (with the exception for U.K., UK in stead of GB). The coding system has also been reorganised so as to ensure that, when the codes are selected in an ascending numerical order, the different elements of the nomenclature are presented in the order required by the Member States.
The NUTS version 6 subdivides the EU into 77 regions at NUTS 1 level, 206 regions at NUTS 2 level and 1031 regions at NUTS 3 level. At the local level, the NUTS 4 level is defined only for the following countries: Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxemburg, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The NUTS 5 level consists of 98 433 communes or their equivalent. The local NUTS levels are not contained in the GISCO NUTS layer, but constitute the Communes layer (see 2.4). Tables 1 and 2 show the correspondence between the NUTS levels and the national administrative divisions (level 1-3).
Some NUTS regions appear at several levels (example: Luxemburg appears as the country and at levels 1, 2, and 3). In this case, only one code is assigned. Table 3 contains a list of those regions.
Despite the aim of ensuring that regions of comparable size all appear at the same NUTS level, each level still contains regions which differ greatly in terms of area, population, economic weight or administrative powers. This heterogeneity at Community level is often only the reflection of the situation existing at Member State level.
For the NUTS nomenclature, version 6, it can be stated:
in terms of area, the largest regions are situated in Sweden and in Finland:
In contrast, even at NUTS level 1 there are four regions (urban zones) with an area of less than 1000 km²: Bruxelles-Brussel, Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg.
in terms of population, there are also marked differences between regions:
Not all NUTS levels are present for all countries and for the different scale coverages. Table 4 shows for each of the countries which level is applicable.
Table 1: Correspondence between the NUTS levels and the national administrative divisions (version 5)
| B | 3 | 9 | 43 | |||
| DK | 1 | 1 | 15 | |||
| D | 16 | 40 | 543 | |||
| GR | 4 | 13 | 51 | |||
| E | 7 |
| 17
1 |
| 50
2 | |
| F |
| 8
1 |
| 22
4 |
| 96
4 |
| IRL | 1 | 1 | 9 | |||
| I | 11 | 20 | 95 | |||
| L | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| NL | 4 | 12 | 40 | |||
| P |
| 1
2 |
| 5
2 | 30 | |
| UK | 11 | 35 | 65 | |||
| -EUR12 | 71 | 183 | 1044 | |||
Table 2: Correspondence between the NUTS levels and the national administrative divisions (version 6)
| BE | 3 | 11 | 43 | |||
| DK | 1 | 1 | 15 | |||
| DE | 16 | 38 | 445 | |||
| GR | 4 | 13 | 51 | |||
| ES | 7 |
| 17
1 |
| 50
2 | |
| FR |
| 8
1 |
| 22
4 |
| 96
4 |
| IE | 1 | 1 | 8 | |||
| IT | 11 | 20 | 103 | |||
| LU | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| NL | 4 | 12 | 40 | |||
| AT | 3 | 9 | 35 | |||
| PT |
| 1
2 |
| 5
2 | 30 | |
| FI | 2 | 6 | 19 | |||
| SE | 1 | 8 | 24 | |||
| UK | 11 | 35 | 65 | |||
| EUR12 | 71 | 183 | 1044 | |||
The national totals
of one level take the superior levels belonging to this level
into consideration (e.g. Belgium: 10 provinces and 1 units considered
as NUTS 2: Région Bruxelles-Capitale/Brussels Hoofdstedelijk
Gewest)
Table 3: Multiple level regions
| BE1 | Reg. Bruxelles-Cap/Hfdst. Gew. | 1 2 3 |
| BE31 | Brabant Wallon | 2 3 |
| DK | Danmark | 0 1 2 3 |
| DE3 | Berlin | 1 2 |
| DE4 | Brandenburg | 1 2 |
| DE5 | Bremen | 1 2 |
| DE6 | Hamburg | 1 2 |
| DE8 | Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 1 2 |
| DEC | Saarland | 1 2 |
| DED | Sachsen | 1 2 |
| DEF | Schleswig-Holstein | 1 2 |
| DEG | Thüringen | 1 2 |
| GR3 | Attiki | 1 2 3 |
| ES12 | Principado de Asturias | 2 3 |
| ES13 | Cantabria | 2 3 |
| ES22 | Comunidad Foral de Navarra | 2 3 |
| ES23 | La Rioja | 2 3 |
| ES3 | Comunidad de Madrid | 1 2 3 |
| ES53 | Islas Baleares | 2 3 |
| ES62 | Region de Murcia | 2 3 |
| ES7 | Canarias | 1 2 |
| FR1 | Île de France | 1 2 |
| FR3 | Nord - Pas-de-Calais | 1 2 |
| FR91 | Guadeloupe | 2 3 |
| FR92 | Martinique | 2 3 |
| FR93 | Guyane | 2 3 |
| FR94 | Réunion | 2 3 |
| IE | Ireland | 0 1 2 |
Table 4: Available NUTS region level per country
| DE | |||||||||
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| IT | |||||||||
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| BE | |||||||||
| LU | |||||||||
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| ES | |||||||||
| PT | |||||||||
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| LI | |||||||||
| CH | |||||||||
| NO | |||||||||
| IS |
The most recent NUTS nomenclature, version 7, was established in 1998. Most European countries have kept the same NUTS division as in the previous version (version 6), with the following exceptions:
In Sweden the major changes are the following:
In Finland the main changes are:
In United Kingdom there is a completely new NUTS division on all levels.
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