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List of place name: Population of the Continuous Municipal Register by Population Unit

• 1Contact
  • 1.1Contact organisation
    National Statistics Institute of Spain
    
  • 1.5Contact mail address

    Avenida de Manoteras 50-52 - 28050 Madrid

    
    
• 2Metadata update
  • 2.1Metadata last certified
    08/02/2024
  • 2.2Metadata last posted
    23/01/2024
  • 2.3Metadata last update
    08/02/2024
• 3Statistical presentation
  • 3.1Data description

    The Statistical Operation Gazetteer: Population of the Continuous Municipal Register by Population Unit publishes a detailed list of population centres and groups existing from 1 January in each municipality, including their codes and population referring to that date, broken down by sex.

    It is obtained from the update of the population centres and institutions carried out by the city councils in their municipalities and which, in compliance with current legislation, are communicated to the INE at least once a year.

    The populations have been obtained based on population figures from the annual revision of the Municipal Registers.

  • 3.2Classification system
    • Clasificaciones utilizadas

      For territorial disaggregation at national level, the official classification of the List of Municipalities, Provinces and autonomous communities and cities and their codes is used.

  • 3.3Sector coverage

    It includes all persons registered in Spain. Law 7/1985, regulating the rules on the local government system, establishes the compulsory nature of registering all persons living in Spain in the Municipal Register, not making any distinction due to nationality, nor requiring legal residence in Spain.
    

  • 3.4Statistical concepts and definitions
    • Group entity
      As an intermediate unit between the singular population entity and the municipality, in some regions, there are groupings of singular entities (parishes, brotherhoods, councils and others) that comprise a group population entity with its own identity and a markedly historical origin.
    • Population nucleus
      The Population nucleus is considered to be a whole of at least ten buildings, forming streets, squares and other urban roads. As an exception, the number of buildings may be smaller than 10, so long as the population inhabiting them exceeds 50 inhabitants. The nucleus includes those buildings that, being isolated, are closer than 200 metres from the outer limits of the aforementioned whole, though in the determination of said distance, we must exclude that land occupied by industrial or commercial installations, parks, gardens, sports areas, cemeteries, parking lots and others, as well as those channels or rivers that may be crossed via bridges.
      The buildings or dwellings of a singular population entity that may not be included in the nucleus will be considered in the surrounding area.
      A singular population entity may have more than one nucleus, or none at all, if all of it is found in a surrounding area.
      No dwelling may belong simultaneously to two or more nuclei, or to a nucleus and a surrounding area.
    • Regular residence according to Municipal Register
      Place where a person normally spends his or her daily rest period, regardless of temporary absences for leisure purposes, holidays, visiting friends or relatives, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage.
    • Resident population
      The population resident in a given geographical scope is defined as those persons who, on the reference date, have established their usual residence therein.
    • Sex
      Sex refers to the biological sex of the person. According to the WHO, "sex" refers to biological and physiological features defining to men and women, whereas "gender" refers to the roles, behaviour, activities and attributes constructed socially that a specific culture regards as appropriate for men and women. In accordance with this description, the WHO regards "man" and "woman" as sex categories, whereas "male" and "female" are gender categories.
    • Singular entity
      A Singular population entity is understood to be any inhabitable area of the municipal territory, whether inhabited or, as an exception, uninhabited, clearly differentiated within that territory, and which is known by a specific name that identifies it without the possibility of misunderstanding.
    • Surrounding area
      The buildings or dwellings of a singular population entity that may not be included in the nucleus will be considered in the surrounding area.
  • 3.5Statistical unit

    Person resident in Spain registered in the INE database.

  • 3.6Statistical population

    The target population of the statistic is all persons registered in Spain.
    

  • 3.7Reference area

    The statistic collects all the population units of all the municipalities in the national territory.

  • 3.8Time coverage

    The statistics are carried out on a yearly basis with reference date January 1 of each year, with results available since 2000. In addition, files containing data from 1981 can be downloaded.

    It must be pointed out that up to 2002, for some municipalities the INE has not had the corresponding population register files available, due to which, for these municipalities, the population has not been obtained below the municipal level.

  • 3.9Base period

    The series begins with data as of January 1, 2000. In addition, files containing data from 1981 can be downloaded.

• 4Unit of measure
  • 4.1Unit of measure

    Number of persons.

• 5Reference period
  • 5.1Reference period

    1 January of each year

    Data referred to the period: Anual A: 2023

• 6Institutional mandate
  • 6.1Legal acts and other agreements

    The compilation and dissemination of the data are governed by the Statistical Law No. 12/1989 "Public Statistical Function" of May 9, 1989, and Law No. 4/1990 of June 29 on “National Budget of State for the year 1990" amended by Law No. 13/1996 "Fiscal, administrative and social measures" of December 30, 1996, makes compulsory all statistics included in the National Statistics Plan. The National Statistical Plan 2009-2012 was approved by the Royal Decree 1663/2008. It contains the statistics that must be developed in the four year period by the State General Administration's services or any other entity dependent on it. All statistics included in the National Statistics Plan are statistics for state purposes and are obligatory. The National Statistics Plan 2021-2024, approved by Royal Decree 1110/2020, of 15  December, is the Plan currently implemented. This statistical operation has governmental purposes, and it is included in the National Statistics Plan 2021-2024. (Statistics of the State Administration).

    
    

    The INE is obliged by Law (article 17.3 of Law 7/1985 regulating the rules on the local government system) to submit to the National Government, for approval by Royal Decree, the proposal of official population figures of the Spanish municipalities based on the coordination carried out of the municipal Registers.
    The procedure to obtain the population figures resulting from the Revision of the Municipal Register referring to 1 January involves different phases and is regulated in the Resolution of 20 July 2018 of the Presidency of the National Statistics Institute and the Directorate General for Regional and Local Cooperation, whereby technical instructions are dictated to the City Councils regarding the annual revision of the Municipal Register and regarding the procedure for obtaining the proposal for official population figures.

  • 6.2Data sharing
    The exchanges of information needed to elaborate statistics between the INE and the rest of the State statistical offices (Ministerial Departments, independent bodies and administrative bodies depending on the State General Administration), or between these offices and the Autonomic statistical offices, are regulated in the LFEP (Law of the Public Statistic Function). This law also regulates the mechanisms of statistical coordination, and concludes cooperation agreements between the different offices when necessary.
    

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• 7Confidentiality
  • 7.1Confidentiality - policy

    The Statistical Law No. 12/1989 specifies that the INE cannot publish, or make otherwise available, individual data or statistics that would enable the identification of data for any individual person or entity. Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society

    
    
  • 7.2Confidentiality - data treatment
    INE provides information on the protection of confidentiality at all stages of the statistical process: INE questionnaires for the operations in the national statistical plan include a legal clause protecting data under statistical confidentiality. Notices prior to data collection announcing a statistical operation notify respondents that data are subject to statistical confidentiality at all stages. For data processing, INE employees have available the INE data protection handbook, which specifies the steps that should be taken at each stage of processing to ensure reporting units' individual data are protected. The microdata files provided to users are anonymised.
    

    Given the nature of the statistical operation (to disseminate the relationship of institutions and centres with their populations), it is not applicable.
    

• 8Release policy
  • 8.1Release calendar

    The advance release calendar that shows the precise release dates for the coming year is disseminated in the last quarter of each year.

    
    
  • 8.2Release calendar access

    The calendar is disseminated on the INEs Internet website (Publications Calendar)

    
    
  • 8.3User access

    The data are released simultaneously according to the advance release calendar to all interested parties by issuing the press release. At the same time, the data are posted on the INE's Internet website (www.ine.es/en) almost immediately after the press release is issued. Also some predefined tailor-made requests are sent to registered users. Some users could receive partial information under embargo as it is publicly described in the European Statistics Code of Practice

    
    
• 9Frequency of dissemination
  • 9.1Frequency of dissemination

    Data is disseminated annually.
    

• 10Accessibility and clarity
  • 10.1News release

    The results of the statistical operations are normally disseminated by using press releases that can be accessed via both the corresponding menu and the Press Releases Section in the web

    
    
  • 10.2Publications

    The results of the statistics are disseminated through the INE website.

  • 10.3On-line database

    INEbase is the system the INE uses to store statistical information on the Internet. It contains all the information the INE produces in electronic formats. The primary organisation of the information follows the theme-based classification of the Inventory of Statistical Operations of the State General Administration . The basic unit of INEbase is the statistical operation, defined as the set of activities that lead to obtaining statistical results on a determined sector or subject based on the individually collected data. Also included in the scope of this definition are synthesis preparation.

    
    

    Access to the data through the following link:

    https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INEbase/en/operacion.htm?c=Estadistica_C&cid=1254736177010&menu=resultados&idp=1254734710990

    AC1=2.195.901

  • 10.4Micro-data access
    A lot of statistical operations disseminate public domain anonymized files, available free of charge for downloading in the INE website Microdata Section
    

    Given the nature of the operation this concept is not applicable.
    

  • 10.5Other

    On the INE website, an application is available to users to search for population units and files for download are published with the relationship of all population units at national level and for each of the provinces.

  • 10.6Documentation on methodology

    Information available at:

    https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INEbase/en/operacion.htm?c=Estadistica_C&cid=1254736177010&menu=metodologia&idp=1254734710990

     

  • 10.7Quality documentation

    Sections 10.7 to 17 of this document are the user-oriented quality report for this operation.

• 11Quality management
  • 11.1Quality assurance

    Quality assurance framework for the INE statistics is based on the ESSCoP, the European Statistics Code of Practice made by EUROSTAT. The ESSCoP is made up of 16 principles, gathered in three areas: Institutional Environment, Processes and Products. Each principle is associated with some indicators which make possible to measure it. In order to evaluate quality, EUROSTAT provides different tools: the indicators mentioned above, Self-assessment based on the DESAP model, peer review, user satisfaction surveys and other proceedings for evaluation.

    
    

    The continuous management of the population register has established a series of controls to detect and correct errors which guarantee the quality of the figures obtained.

    To detect other errors, in the filtering phases of the Gazetteer, the information contained in the population relative to each inhabitant is compared with the existing information in the Electoral Roll Street Directory, to determine the population institution to which the inhabitant belongs.

  • 11.2Quality assessment

    The data comes from the Municipal Registers of Inhabitants, which are the administrative registers that each City Council manages, and in which continuous process of data updating and filtering is performed.

    The INE is responsible for the coordination of these municipal registers, and is in charge of avoiding duplicates, among other tasks.

• 12Relevance
  • 12.1User needs

    The users' specific needs are taken into account when extending the information offered on the web with new tables or data files, always respecting statistical confidentiality.
    The following users of the statistic are worth noting:
    · Ministries and other public agencies
    · Territorial administrations (autonomous communities, provincial councils, city councils)
    · Universities and research centres
    · Companies
    · Press and specialised media
    · Individuals
    · Other INE units

  • 12.2User satisfaction

    The INE has carried out general user satisfaction surveys in 2007, 2010, 2013,  2016 and 2019 and it plans to continue doing so every three years. The purpose of these surveys is to find out what users think about the quality of the information of the INE statistics and the extent to which their needs of information are covered. In addition, additional surveys are carried out in order to acknowledge better other fields such as dissemination of the information, quality of some publications...

    On the INE website, in its section Methods and Projects / Quality and Code of Practice / INE quality management / User surveys are available surveys conducted to date.(Click  next link)

     

    
    

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  • 12.3Completeness

    The rate of mandatory information available is 100%.

    R1=100%

• 13Accuracy and reliability
  • 13.1Overall accuracy

    The statistics" overall reliability is conditioned on the reliability of the base file that is used, which comes from the coordination of the municipal registers.

  • 13.2Sampling error

    There are no sampling errors because it is the direct use of a record.

  • 13.3Non-sampling error

    The data comes from an administrative register and all the accepted units possess information; there are some errors that affect the coding of the population units and that are amended in the different phases. These errors affect approximately 0.3% of the records.

    A4=0.3

• 14Timeliness and punctuality
  • 14.1Timeliness

    The data is published in January of the year t+1, i.e. within 12 months.

    TP2=12 months.

  • 14.2Punctuality

    Data dissemination is carried out according to the structural statistics availability calendar that INE prepares and publishes each year.

    TP3=0.

• 15Coherence and Comparability
  • 15.1Comparability - geographical

    All the data is comparable for any territorial disaggregation as they all come from the municipal registers, which are governed by the same regulations and are coordinated by the INE.

  • 15.2Comparability - over time

    The statistics data are comparable since the year 2000, therefore the number of comparable elements of the time series is 24.

    CC2=24.

  • 15.3Coherence - cross domain

    The population figures of the Gazetteer for the municipalities coincide with the Revision of the Municipal Register and with the Statistics of the Continuous Register since the source is the same and they are the result of the same procedure.

  • 15.4Coherence - internal

    All results are obtained from an administrative record and are consistent with one another.

• 16Cost and burden
  • 16.1Cost and burden

    Since the statistics data is obtained directly from the municipal register, there are no costs associated with the collection or burden for respondents.

    The estimation of the budgetary credit necessary to finance these statistics, as foreseen in the 2024 Annual Programme, comes to a total of 34.79 thousand euros.

• 17Data revision
  • 17.1Data revision - policy

    The INE of Spain has a policy which regulates the basic aspects of statistical data revision, seeking to ensure process transparency and product quality. This policy is laid out in the document approved by the INE board of directors on 13 March of 2015, which is available on the INE website, in the section "Methods and projects/Quality and Code of Practice/INE’s Quality management/INE’s Revision policy" (link).

    This general policy sets the criteria that the different type of revisions should follow:  routine revision- it is the case of statistics whose production process includes regular revisions-; more extensive revision- when methodological or basic reference source changes take place-; and exceptional revision- for instance, when an error appears in a published statistic-.

    
    

    Only definitive data is published, which are not reviewed.

  • 17.2Data revision - practice

    Provisional data is not published.

• 18Statistical processing
  • 18.1Source data

    The Gazetteer is obtained from the coordination of the Municipal Registers.

    The list of population units is derived from the updating of the population centres and institutions carried out by the City Councils in their municipalities and which, in compliance with current legislation, are communicated to the INE at least once a year.

    
    The municipal register is the administrative register where the municipality's residents are recorded. Everybody who resides in Spain is obliged to register in the Register of the municipality in which they habitually reside. Anyone who lives in several municipalities will have to register only in the one in which they spend the most time per year.

    The city councils are responsible for the preparation, updating, revision and supervision thereof, as they must perform the actions and operations necessary for the data in their Registers to coincide with reality.
    The city councils manages these registers by computer, and in those cases in which they lack the means of doing so, the registers are managed by the Provincial Councils.

  • 18.2Frequency of data collection

    Law 7/1985, of 2 April, regulating the rules on the local government system and the Regulation on the Population and Territorial Demarcation of Local Institutions establishes that the Town Councils must send, via computerised or telematic methods, the monthly variations which occur in the Municipal register data to the National Statistics Institute so that this institute, in compliance with the obligations that article 17.3 of the aforementioned Local Government Law imposes, carries out the appropriate checks to correct errors and duplicates and that the official figures resulting from the annual reviews may be declared official.

  • 18.3Data collection

    The city councils are in charge of keeping their municipal registers permanently updated, with the data declared by citizens, and they must carry out the updates and operations that are necessary for the data in their municipal registers to coincide with reality.
    Likewise, each month, the city councils must send the INE all the variations occurring in the month (registrations, deregistrations and modifications), with the INE being in charge of the coordination of all of the municipal registers, so as to avoid duplicities occurring among the different Registers.

  • 18.4Data validation

    Municipal registers are permanently updated registers from which data is obtained in order to prepare the Gazetteer. Since this is a register, all units contain information on the variables considered for each inhabitant.

    In cases in which some error appears in the population unit coding, a comparison is made with the information from the Electoral Roll Street Directory.

    In addition, a process for the detection of possible inconsistencies in the sex variable is carried out, contrasting with sources from the Ministry of the Interior.

  • 18.5Data compilation

    A filtering of the sex variable is carried out on the file from which the Official Population Figures and the Gazetteer are obtained so that no invalid value appears.
    A filtering is also carried out at the territorial level of the population unit, which allows the municipality to receive information on the population for these levels below the municipality.

  • 18.6Adjustment

    There is no seasonal adjustment, time series breakdown or other similar methods.

• 19Comment
  • 19.1Comment