Official Geographical Code (GOC)

Each year, INSEE makes available on its website (insee.fr) the official geographical code which brings together the codes and denominations of the municipalities, cantons, districts, departments, regions and foreign countries and territories on 1 January. Since 2021, INSEE has also made available the list of local and regional authorities with departmental competences. Since 2022, INSEE has been offering two new files for overseas communities. Since 21 December 2020, the official geographical code is also accessible from a web service, the [metadata API](https://api.insee.fr/catalogue/site/themes/wso2/subthemes/insee/pages/item-info.jag?name=M%C3%A9tadonn%C3%A9es&version=V1&provider=insee), which allows access to the history of the COG. This web service is available on the [API](https://api.insee.fr/catalogue/site/pages/list-apis.jag) portal of insee.fr ** Warning:** The COG files have evolved significantly in their format and structure, starting in the 2019 vintage. They are now available in dBase (ISO8859-15 encoding) and CSV (Comma separator, UTF-8 encoding) format. The contents of the files of the French administrative divisions (commune canton, district, department and region) have been simplified and standardised. The wording with article (“La Rochelle”) is added to the enriched wording, to the uppercase wording and to the article code. The historical file of the communes is replaced by a file of movements of communes which gives the state of the communes before and after the events that affect them (merger, creation of new commune, change of name...). In 2021, the number of new municipalities is still limited: 19 municipalities merged to form 9 new municipalities between 2 January 2021 and 1 January 2022. In addition, 15 delegated municipalities and one associated municipality have been removed, 28 cantons have been amended and 2 municipalities have changed boroughs (a district change was also made following the merger of two municipalities that were not in the same arrondissement). INSEE also makes available two new files for overseas communities: The first list of overseas authorities as of 1 January 2022, the second lists the municipalities of overseas authorities.