In order to ensure that data from different countries are comparable and to put forward common bases for analysis at international level, Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, has created different territorial classifications.
For the City Statistics at European level, the definitions of city and functional urban areas are used. Although these are close, in terms of concept, to the FSO’s definition of agglomerations, which is used for the City Statistics at national level, Eurostat’s definitions are based on other thresholds involving different perimeters.
The City (Eurostat definition)
A city is a municipality in which the majority of the population lives in an urban core. Urban cores are determined on the basis a kilometre-scale grid of the population. These must have at least 50 000 inhabitants and a population density of more than 1500 inhabitants per km2.
If an urban core spreads over several municipalities, all of the municipalities are taken into account. These are generally referred to as greater cities. In Switzerland, with the exception of Saint-Gallen and Winterthur, the cities (or greater cities) extend over several municipalities according to the Eurostat definition.
