1. Presenting a harmonised city definition and its application
What is a city?
Presenting a harmonised city definition and its application
Alexandros Karvounis
DG REGIO - Unit B1
Economic Analysis and Additionality
Taskforce on Passenger Mobility, 10th April 2014

2. According to ESTAT Glossary
"A city can be defined as:
a) un urban settlement (morphological concept)
b) a functional unit;
c) a legal entity (administrative concept)"
Problem: this concept is not always comparable between countries and undermines the credibility of cross country analysis of cities.

3. Two linked local classifications
New degree of urbanisation
Cities (densely)
Towns and suburbs (intermediate)
Rural areas (thinly populated)
Urban Audit 2012
Cities
Commuting zones
Other areas
IMPORTANT! Cities are selected based on the population of their centre, not total population

4. New degree of urbanisation
Type of Area
Criteria
Thinly populated or rural area
> 50% pop. in rural grid cells
Intermediate or
towns and suburbs or
small urban area
< 50% pop. in rural grid cells and < 50% pop. in urban centres
Densely populated or cities or
large urban area
> 50% pop. in urban centres

5. Detailed definition
A city is a local administrative unit (LAU) where the majority of the population lives in an urban centre of at least inhabitants.
Urban centre
Contiguous grid cells with at least inhabitants per km2, excluding diagonals
Gaps filled
A minimum population of
City
A city consists of one or more LAU2s
City has at least 50% population in urban centres
At least 75% of each urban centre population is located within one or more cities

6. One, two, three city of Graz

7. Harmonised definition in three steps
Define an urban centre of or more
Define a city based on this urban centre (LAU2 or groups of LAU2s)
Define a commuting zone based on this city (including check for polycentric cities)
A commuting zone contains the surrounding travel-to-work areas of a city where at least 15 % of their employed residents are working in this city.

8. One, two, three

11. 828 (greater) cities with an urban centre of at least inhabitants in the EU, Switzerland, Croatia, Iceland and Norway were identified.
Half of these European cities are relatively small with a centre between and inhabitants.
Only two are global cities (London and Paris). These cities host about 40 % of the EU population.

12. Acknowledgements of all the partners
DG AGRI, JRC, Eurostat
OECD
30+ national statisticals institutes
European Forum for Geostatistics

13. More information on CITIES IN EUROPE, THE NEW OECD-EC DEFINITION
By Lewis Dijkstra and Hugo Poelman
DG REGIO, Regional Focus RF 01/2012