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The publication, Portrait of the Regions, provides information on geographic, demographic,
and economic variables. Data pertaining to these variables is available at the provincial, regional, and
county levels. Each region is subdivided into its counties. The county level provides information on
the urban areas in each county, and thus the region in its totality. In each administrative NUTS 2
region the number of urban centres are classified by total population categories of one hundred
thousand or greater, fifty thousand or greater, and twenty thousand or greater. This information
facilitates the identification of the major urban centres in an administrative region. The urban
population density per square kilometre statistic is provided for each major city in an administrative
region. The regional population statistic - population per square kilometre - is a population density
measure for each county in the region, and the region in its totality. It includes the population in urban
and rural districts.
4.3.2 Classification Criteria
In the Labour Force Survey of 1998, Eurostat9 introduced the concept of urbanisation and
urban areas for each region. Three types of regions are defined according to their degree of
urbanisation. Although they have been somewhat modified, this analysis has made use of these
definitions. A densely populated region is one where one or more urban areas have a population
density of more than 500 people per square kilometre. The region may also contain other urban areas
with a lower population density. An intermediate region is one that is composed of one or more urban
areas with a population density of more than 100 people per square kilometre, [but less than 500 per
square kilometre, and borders on a densely populated region].10 A region with a low population density
is characterised as having less than 100 people per square kilometre and does not border on an
intermediate area. However, this analysis will not make use of the Eurostat definition of a low
population region. Alternatively, any region that does not border on a densely populated region, but
only on an intermediate region, will be referred to as a periphery region.
9 Eurostat, Statistics in Focus: Regions, 1998 (4)
10 Author’s insertion and modification.