Administrative Divisions of Spain

Municipal, provincial and regional enclosures and municipal, provincial and regional boundary lines registered in the Central Register of Cartography (RCC)(https://www.ign.es/web/ign/portal/rcc-area-rcc). The geometry inscribed in the RCC responds to the interpretation of the legal titles registered in the RCC: borderline acts, administrative decisions, court rulings, etc. Some lines or sections of lines may be “provisional”, that is, they lack a legal title that guarantees their geometry and therefore their representation in the cartography only responds to the topological need for the closure of municipal polygons. Royal Decree 1545/2007 of 23 November 2007 regulating the National Cartographic System establishes among the functions of the RCC those of registering official cartography, territorial delimitations and their variations, and compiling, standardising and disseminating official toponymy. Article 20 of this Royal Decree states that the municipal boundary lines, the boundaries of the provinces and the delimitations of the territories of the Autonomous Communities are part of the Territorial Delimitations and must therefore be entered in the Central Cartography Register. Likewise, Article 4.1 of the aforementioned Royal Decree establishes that “all the production of official geographical information and mapping shall be made from the Geographical Equipment of National Reference, which shall be composed of (...); by the Territorial Delimitations registered in the Central Register of Cartography (...)”, that is, the territorial delimitations used in the official cartography must be those registered in the RCC. It should be noted that, in general, the geometry with which each line appears inscribed in the RCC has a geometric uncertainty of around 40 meters, according to the experience and contrast with precise specific works carried out by the Geographical Institute on numerous boundary lines. This is a consequence of the inaccuracies of the topographic methods and instruments used in its day by the Geographic Institute for its survey and subsequent drawing on the National Topographic Map, to which must be added those of the processes of digitisation of these boundary lines on printed cartography, carried out years later to obtain its digital version. The exception to the above are those lines in which a series of technical and administrative works have been developed required by the state or regional regulations in force for the demarcation of the municipalities, which has allowed the registration of a more precise geometry.