Standards and Classifications

The fundamental objective of statistical standardisation is to contribute to the creation of a coherent statistical system, with concepts, variables classifications and statistical units harmonised on a national and international level. Thus, reliable and comparable information in relation to the different sector fields and relevant topics for statistical analysis is guaranteed.

Statistical classifications

• National classifications

  The Law 12/1989, of 9 May, on the Public Statistical Services (BOE 11-05-1989), in article 26 shows that suggestion of rules on concepts, definitions, statistical units, classifications, nomenclatures and codes for the classification of data and the presentation of results corresponds to the INE.

  • List of municipalities and their codes by provinces
  • National Classification of Economic Activities. CNAE
  • National Classification of Occupations. CNO
  • National Classification of Education. CNED
  • Classification of Products by Activities. CPA

• International classifications

  In the international scope, classifications are the responsibility of different bodies, like:

  • EUROSTAT: European Unión classifications (NACE-Rev.1, CPA, PRODCOM, NC,...)
  • United Nations: World classifications (CIIU (ISIC), CPC, COICOP, COFOG, ...)
  • Education classifications (ISCED)

• Help applications for encoding and management of classifications

  • GESCLA 2009. Statistical classification management
  • AYUDACOD: Program for assisting with encoding

Standards

• Standard lists approved by the National Statistics Institute

  • Autonomous Cities and Communities
  • Provinces
  • Municipalities
  • Countries and Other territories
  • Employment (CNO-2011)   -  Detailed information
  • Economic activity (CNAE-2009)  -   Detailed information - Revisiones de la CNAE

  In order to aid statistical use of information provided by citizens and companies to the different public administrations, it is a good idea for definitions and encoding of certain variables to always be the same. In order to achieve a gradual standardisation, the variables of statistical interest for which a standard list is available will be added on this page.

• Standard for statistical variables used by the National Statistics Institute

  • Sex
  • Legal marital status
  • Nationality
  • Country of birth

  In order to aid statistical use of information provided by citizens and companies to the different public administrations, it is a good idea for definitions and encoding of certain variables to always be the same. In order to achieve a gradual standardisation, the variables of statistical interest for which a standard list is available will be added on this page.

• Standard for adjusting seasonal and calendar effects in short-term series

  • Standard for adjusting seasonal and calendar effects in short-term series
  • Spectral analysis and seasonal adjustment
  • JDemetra+ manual for seasonal and calendar adjustment of time series.

• Methodological information standard for online dissemination

  Standardised methodological reports constitute the reference metadata that accompany statistical operations data that allow knowing the contents, methodologies and quality aspects associated with each statistical operation in a systematic, homogenous and structured way.

  The INE Board of Directors approved the standard structure of the methodological report during their meeting of December 13, 2011. This standard has to be applied to statistical operations that publish data since the year 2012.

  These reports or files are based on the ESMS (Euro SDMX Metadata Structure)structure, which is determined by the Recommendation of the Commission, 23 June 2009, about reference metadata for the European Statistical System.

  • Standard description
  • Available methodological reports

• Standard for documenting the production process of statistical operations of the INE

  The standardised documents of the process metadata constitute the INE standard to document the production processes of the statistical operations it compiles. The information compiled by means of these reports will also allow furthering the knowledge, assessment and standardisation on how to produce statistical information.
  This standard was approved by the Governing Board of the INE on 7 April 2015, and implies an adaptation to the international reference standard GSBPM (Generic Statistical Business Process Model) adopted by the United Nations in April 2009 and whose current 5.1 version was revised in January 2019.
  The process metadata standard of the INE is configured in a task structure within each sub-process that constitutes a third -level breakdown of the GSBPM.

  • Description of the documentation standard

• Concept glossary

  • What is the concept glossary?
  • Concept Glossary