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

NUTS-1
NUTS-2
NUTS-3

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