Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics
The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, (NUTS) for the French nomenclature d'unités territoriales statistiques, is a geocode standard that shows the administrative divisions of countries for statistical purposes. It was made by the European Union, so it only covers the member states of that union in detail.
A NUTS code begins with a two-letter code referencing the country, and is identical to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code (the only difference is UK instead of GB for the United Kingdom). The subdivision of the country is then displayed by one number. A second or third subdivision level is referred to with another number each. Each numbering starts with 1, as 0 is used for the upper level. In case the subdivision has more than 9 entities, capital letters are used to continue the numbering.
In addition to the full three levels for the European Union countries, all countries have a NUTS code with a two-letter code for a continent and two numbers for the country, and for the USA, Canada and Australia the states, provinces, and territories are numbered separately.
Some are not easily classified: for example, Gibraltar is listed as being outside the EU with the code EO21; while French Guiana is listed twice, once in France as FR930 and once in South America as AS13.
NUTS, in some ways are similar to the ISO 3166-2 standard, as well as the FIPS standard of the United States.
Levels
There are three levels of NUTS. Some with two levels of local administrative units (LAUs) below. These were called NUTS levels 4 and 5 until July 2003, but were changed due to official regulations although they are sometimes still described as such. Note that not all countries have every level of division, depending on their size. One of the most extreme cases is Luxembourg, which has only LAUs; the three NUTS divisions each correspond to the entire country itself.
| Countries | NUTS 1 | NUTS 2 | NUTS 3 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austria | AT | Groups of states | 3 | States | 9 | Groups of Bezirks | 35 |
| Belgium | BE | Regions | 3 | Provinces (+ Brussels Capital Region) | 11 | Arrondissements | 43 |
| Denmark | DK | - | 2 | Regions | 5 | Groups of municipalities | 11 |
| Finland | FI | Mainland Finland | 1 | Large areas | 4 | Regions | 20 |
| Åland | 1 | - | 1 | - | 1 | ||
| France | FR | ZEAT | 8 | Régions | 22 | Départements | 96 |
| Overseas departments | 1 | Overseas departments | 4 | Département d'outre-mer | 4 | ||
| Germany | DE | States (Länder or Bundesländer) | 16 | Regierungsbezirke | 41 | Districts (Kreise) | 439 |
| Greece | GR | Groups of development regions | 4 | Peripheries | 13 | Prefectures | 51 |
| Ireland | IE | - | 1 | Regions | 2 | Regional Authority Regions | 8 |
| Italy | IT | Groups of regions | 5 | Regions | 20 | Provinces | 110 |
| Luxembourg | LU | - | 1 | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| Netherlands | NL | Landsdelen | 4 | Provinces | 12 | COROP regio's | 40 |
| Portugal | PT | Continental Portugal | 1 | Comissões de coordenação regional | 5 | Groups of Municipalities | 28 |
| Azores and Madeira | 2 | - | 2 | - | 2 | ||
| Spain | ES | Groups of autonomous communities | 7 | Autonomous communities | 17 | Provinces | 50 |
| Ceuta and Melilla | 2 | - | 2 | ||||
| Sweden | SE | - | 3 | National areas | 8 | Counties | 21 |
| United Kingdom | UK | Regions of England | 9 | Groups of Counties; Inner and Outer London | 30 | Unitary authorities or groups of districts | 93 |
| Wales | 1 | Groups of unitary authorities | 2 | Groups of unitary authorities | 12 | ||
| Scotland | 1 | Groups of unitary authorities or LECs | 4 | Groups of unitary authorities or LECs | 23 | ||
| Northern Ireland | 1 | County | 1 | Groups of districts | 5 | ||
| EU-15 | - | 72 | - | 213 | - | 1091 | |
| Bulgaria | BG | Regions | 2 | Planning Regions | 6 | Oblasts | 28 |
| Cyprus | CY | - | 1 | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| Czech Republic | CZ | - | 1 | Groups of Regions | 8 | Regions | 14 |
| Estonia | EE | - | 1 | - | 1 | Groups of Counties | 5 |
| Hungary | HU | Groups of Regions | 3 | Regions | 7 | Counties + Budapest | 20 |
| Latvia | LV | - | 1 | - | 1 | Regions | 6 |
| Lithuania | LT | - | 1 | - | 1 | Counties | 10 |
| Malta | MT | - | 1 | - | 1 | Islands | 2 |
| Poland | PL | Groups of Voivodeships | 6 | Voivodeships of Poland | 16 | Podregiony (Groups of Powiats) | 45 |
| Romania | RO | Macroregion | 4 | Regions | 8 | Counties and Bucharest | 42 |
| Slovakia | SK | - | 1 | Groups of Regions | 4 | Regions | 8 |
| Slovenia | SI | - | 1 | Groups of Regions | 2 | Statistical Regions | 12 |
| EU-27 | - | 95 | - | 268 | - | 1291 | |
| Croatia | HR | - | 1 | Statistical Regions | 3 | Counties | 21 |
| Republic of Macedonia | MK | - | 1 | - | 1 | 8 | |
| Turkey | TR | Group of Provinces(İller) | 12 | Group of Provinces(İller) | 22 | Provinces(İller) | 81 |
| EU-CC | - | 14 | - | 26 | - | 110 | |
| Iceland | IS | - | 1 | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| Liechtenstein | LI | - | 1 | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| Norway | NO | - | 1 | 7 | 19 | ||
| Switzerland | CH | - | 1 | Regions | 7 | Cantons | 26 |
