European geodata | Christian Spanring

What’s TIGER in the US, is GISCO in Europe. Not quite as detailed and up to date but at least free to use under following conditions:

a) the data will not be used for commercial purposes;
b) the source will be acknowledged. A copyright notice, as specified below, will have to be visible on any printed or electronic publication using the data downloaded from this page.

The available geodata is aimed to use in combination with other EUROSTAT products (which are also available for free on their website) in the first place. The scale is too small for detailed map production and on most layers the date is indicated with 199x.

If the left hand of EUROSTAT would know what the right hand is doing, everybody who is interested could now start creating statistical maps and analysis across Europe by simply downloading all necessary data. Unfortunately it’s not as easy as it seems to be: the left hand changed the statistical units in Europe (NUTS), while the other hand didn’t. So what we now have is a statistical database using new region codes and a geographic database using old region codes. Needless to say that a lot of GIS out there, working with EUROSTAT data, are now somewhat screwed because geographic and statistical data doesn’t match anymore. A workaround until updated geodata is available is not using the NUTS3 level, NUTS2 (and larger) data seems less problematic. Not the best solution if you’re in the field of regional analysis of course.

Just one more detail on today’s EUROSTAT confusion:

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/nuts/changes_1999_en.html
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/eurostat/ramon/nuts/changes_1999_en.html

Apparently the www-directory was copied. One copy was updated. Now which one of both sites holds the correct information? All bookmarks lead to the old one, no hint (or redirect??) that the entire site has moved and was updated…

Update

Regarding interoperability and openness, the downloadable geodata comes as ESRI Personal Geodatabase 9.2, not sure how many GIS applications can cope with that file format. Whereas provided metadata is excellent, well, GISCO already had excellent metadata in 2001.

http://www.vector1media.com Jeff Thurston

Good post Christian.
You are of course quite right. In fact, I delved into this and reached this point.
—-
United Kingdom

UTS levels 2 and 3
In Scotland, the border between North Eastern Scotland and Highlands and Islands will be shifted by moving east Moray to the latter region. This will affect the borders at both NUTS level 2 and level 3.

A number of region names are being changed or corrected at all NUTS levels, in various parts of the United Kingdom.

All changes in the European regional classification will enter into force on 1 January 2008. For technical reasons, we will switch to the new version of NUTS (NUTS 2007/EU-27) in our dissemination database in late autumn 2007.
———

Now try reading that real fast. It is confusing.

Alas, the INSPIRE Directive stipulates that this sort of data will become freely available – at least that is the intent. Then, folks may proceed to make a living while going nuts.
http://spanring.eu/ Christian

Right Jeff. I guess a lot of organizations will be looking for new data sources soon. In the new GISCO data all countries except EU/EFTA/Candidates were eliminated, which creates a very strange picture of Europe. Unlike the 2003 GISCO data where North Africa, parts of the Middle East, Ukraine, Russia, etc. were included.

Personally I find it questionable that EUROSTAT, as part of the EU Commission, paints that strange image of Europe.
http://www.hokstad.com/ Vidar Hokstad

Comparing this data with TIGER is an insult to the US Census Bureau, both given the data that’s included and given the restrictions.

It’s comical, in a very depressing way, that the US leads the way in providing free, unencumbered GIS data (and all the other federally funded databases they publish in the public domain), while European governments insists on holding on to restrictions that don’t belong anywhere on taxpayer funded data.

I suspect the only way this data will be “liberated” in Europe is through projects like Geonames duplicating the government efforts.
http://spanring.eu/ Christian

Well, anyone who has ever loaded TIGER and GISCO into a GIS application can tell the difference. I fully agree, the European approach towards free geodata is simply depressing and totally outdated. This article has some good points and theories about that issue.