Refined degree of urbanisation in Europe (DEGURBA level 2) - version 1, Jul. 2018

This dataset presents the refined version of the degree of urbanisation of European countries. The degree of urbanisation relies on a population grid to classify local units. Originally the classification system was developed for the European Statistical System to classify local units into three classes (level 1): cities, towns & suburbs, and rural areas. In this version the classification was further refined (level 2) to also identify smaller individual settlements; distinguishing towns from suburbs and identifying villages, dispersed areas and mostly uninhabited areas in former rural areas class. The final classes of the refined degree of urbanisation dataset are six, namely 1) cities, 2) towns, 3) suburbs, 4) villages, 5) dispersed rural areas and 6) mostly uninhabited areas. The temporal reference is set between 2011 and 2012 because of the main inputs, the GEOSTAT population grid 2011 and the European Settlement Map 2012 from Copernicus. IMPORTANT NOTE: This metadata has been created using draft documentation provided by the European Commission, DG REGIO. This dataset has been created by the European Commission, DG Regional and Urban Policy (REGIO) in cooperation with the Joint Research Centre (JRC). Re-distribution or re-use of this dataset is allowed provided that the source is acknowledged.