- Methods and Projects
- Standards and Classifications
Standardised Methodological Report
Official population figures of the Spanish Municipalities: Revision of the Municipal Register
- 1Contact
- 1.1Contact organisation
National Statistics Institute of Spain
- 1.5Contact mail address
Avenida de Manoteras 50-52 - 28050 Madrid
- 1.1Contact organisation
- 2Metadata update
- 2.1Metadata last certified
08/01/2024
- 2.2Metadata last posted
30/12/2021
- 2.3Metadata last update
08/01/2024
- 2.1Metadata last certified
- 3Statistical presentation
- 3.1Data description
The population figures, broken down by sex, are published for all Spanish municipalities at 1 January each year.
These figures are passed by the Government, via the Royal Decree declaring the population figures resulting from the revision of the municipal register, referring to 1 January each year, to be official.
It gathers the population resulting from the municipal registers, after applying the coordination of all of them, and the figure procedure established in the Resolution dated 20 July 2018, of the Presidency of the National Statistics Institute and the General Directorate for Local and Regional Cooperation, dictating technical instructions to the Municipal Councils regarding the annual revision of the Municipal Register and about the procedure for obtaining the proposal for official population figures.
- 3.2Classification system
- Comunidades y Ciudades Autónomas
01 Andalucía
02 Aragón
03 Asturias, Principado de
04 Balears, Illes
05 Canarias
06 Cantabria
07 Castilla y León
08 Castilla - La Mancha
09 Cataluña
10 Comunitat Valenciana
11 Extremadura
12 Galicia
13 Madrid, Comunidad de
14 Murcia, Región de
15 Navarra, Comunidad Foral de
16 País Vasco
17 Rioja, La
18 Ceuta
19 Melilla - Islas
07 Balears, Illes
07071 Formentera
07072 Eivissa
07073 Mallorca
07074 Menorca
35 Palmas, Las
35351 Fuerteventura
35352 Gran Canaria
35353 Lanzarote
38 Santa Cruz de Tenerife
38381 Gomera, La
38382 Hierro, El
38383 Palma, La
38384 Tenerife - Municipios
Relación de municipios y sus códigos acorde al estándar del INE
Ver clasificación - Provincias
02 Albacete
03 Alicante/Alacant
04 Almería
01 Araba/Álava
33 Asturias
05 Ávila
06 Badajoz
07 Balears, Illes
08 Barcelona
48 Bizkaia
09 Burgos
10 Cáceres
11 Cádiz
39 Cantabria
12 Castellón/Castelló
13 Ciudad Real
14 Córdoba
15 Coruña, A
16 Cuenca
20 Gipuzkoa
17 Girona
18 Granada
19 Guadalajara
21 Huelva
22 Huesca
23 Jaén
24 León
25 Lleida
27 Lugo
28 Madrid
29 Málaga
30 Murcia
31 Navarra
32 Ourense
34 Palencia
35 Palmas, Las
36 Pontevedra
26 Rioja, La
37 Salamanca
38 Santa Cruz de Tenerife
40 Segovia
41 Sevilla
42 Soria
43 Tarragona
44 Teruel
45 Toledo
46 Valencia/València
47 Valladolid
49 Zamora
50 Zaragoza
51 Ceuta
52 Melilla - Sexo
1 Hombres
2 Mujeres
- Comunidades y Ciudades Autónomas
- 3.3Sector coverage
It includes all those persons registered in Spain. Law 7/1985, Regulating the Law on Local Ordinances, establishes the compulsory nature of registering all persons living in Spain in the Municipal Register, not making any distinction due to nationality, nor requiring legal residence in Spain.
- 3.4Statistical concepts and definitions
- Citizenship
Citizenship is defined as the particular legal bond between an individual and his/her State,, acquired by birth or naturalisation, whether by declaration, option, marriage or other means according to the national legislation.
- Municipality
The municipality is the basic local entity of the territorial organisation of the State. It has a legal nature, and full capacity to meet its objectives.
- Place of birth
Place where a person was born, in other words, the place of habitual residence of the mother at the time of birth, determined on the date of collecting data.
- Resident population
The population resident in a given geographical scope is defined as those persons who, on the reference date, have established their usual residence therein.
- Sex
Sex refers to the biological sex of the person. According to the WHO, "sex" refers to biological and physiological features defining to men and women, whereas "gender" refers to the roles, behaviour, activities and attributes constructed socially that a specific culture regards as appropriate for men and women. In accordance with this description, the WHO regards "man" and "woman" as sex categories, whereas "male" and "female" are gender categories.
- Citizenship
- 3.5Statistical unit
The basic unit of the statistics is the person resident in Spain and registered in the INE municipal register database.
- 3.6Statistical population
The target population of study of the statistics are all those persons registered in Spain.
- 3.7Reference area
The statistics cover the whole of the national territory. Data are published by province and municipality.
- 3.8Time coverage
The figures are obtained annually, with the reference date being 1 January each year, with the results available as of the year 1998. The figures from the Renewal of the Municipal Register of Inhabitants on 1 May 1996 are also available.
- 3.9Base period
The series begins with the data from 1 January 1998.
- 3.1Data description
- 4Unit of measure
- 4.1Unit of measure
Number of persons.
- 4.1Unit of measure
- 5Reference period
- 5.1Reference period
1 January each year
Data referred to the period: Anual A: 2023
- 5.1Reference period
- 6Institutional mandate
- 6.1Legal acts and other agreements
The compilation and dissemination of the data are governed by the Statistical Law No. 12/1989 "Public Statistical Function" of May 9, 1989, and Law No. 4/1990 of June 29 on “National Budget of State for the year 1990" amended by Law No. 13/1996 "Fiscal, administrative and social measures" of December 30, 1996, makes compulsory all statistics included in the National Statistics Plan. The National Statistical Plan 2009-2012 was approved by the Royal Decree 1663/2008. It contains the statistics that must be developed in the four year period by the State General Administration's services or any other entity dependent on it. All statistics included in the National Statistics Plan are statistics for state purposes and are obligatory. The National Statistics Plan 2021-2024, approved by Royal Decree 1110/2020, of 15 December, is the Plan currently implemented. This statistical operation has governmental purposes, and it is included in the National Statistics Plan 2021-2024. (Statistics of the State Administration).
The INE is obligated by Law (article 17.3 of Law 7/1985, Regulating the Law on Local Ordinances) to submit the proposal of official population figures for Spanish municipalities to the National Government, for approval, based on the coordination carried out by the Municipal Registers.
The procedure for obtaining the population figures resulting from the Municipal Register Revision at 1 January contains different phases, and is regulated in the Resolution dated 20 July 2018, of the Presidency of the National Statistics Institute and the General Directorate for Local and Regional Cooperation, dictating technical instructions to the Municipal Councils regarding the annual revision of the Municipal Register and about the procedure for obtaining the proposal for official population figures. - 6.2Data sharing
The exchanges of information needed to elaborate statistics between the INE and the rest of the State statistical offices (Ministerial Departments, independent bodies and administrative bodies depending on the State General Administration), or between these offices and the Autonomic statistical offices, are regulated in the LFEP (Law of the Public Statistic Function). This law also regulates the mechanisms of statistical coordination, and concludes cooperation agreements between the different offices when necessary.
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- 6.1Legal acts and other agreements
- 7Confidentiality
- 7.1Confidentiality - policy
The Statistical Law No. 12/1989 specifies that the INE cannot publish, or make otherwise available, individual data or statistics that would enable the identification of data for any individual person or entity. Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society
- 7.2Confidentiality - data treatment
INE provides information on the protection of confidentiality at all stages of the statistical process: INE questionnaires for the operations in the national statistical plan include a legal clause protecting data under statistical confidentiality. Notices prior to data collection announcing a statistical operation notify respondents that data are subject to statistical confidentiality at all stages. For data processing, INE employees have available the INE data protection handbook, which specifies the steps that should be taken at each stage of processing to ensure reporting units' individual data are protected. The microdata files provided to users are anonymised.
Given the nature of the statistical operation (to disseminate the figures passed by Royal Decree on a municipal level), this is not applicable.
- 7.1Confidentiality - policy
- 8Release policy
- 8.1Release calendar
The advance release calendar that shows the precise release dates for the coming year is disseminated in the last quarter of each year.
- 8.2Release calendar access
The calendar is disseminated on the INEs Internet website (Publications Calendar)
- 8.3User access
The data are released simultaneously according to the advance release calendar to all interested parties by issuing the press release. At the same time, the data are posted on the INE's Internet website (www.ine.es/en) almost immediately after the press release is issued. Also some predefined tailor-made requests are sent to registered users. Some users could receive partial information under embargo as it is publicly described in the European Statistics Code of Practice
- 8.1Release calendar
- 9Frequency of dissemination
- 9.1Frequency of dissemination
The population figures are disseminated annually.
- 9.1Frequency of dissemination
- 10Accessibility and clarity
- 10.1News release
The results of the statistical operations are normally disseminated by using press releases that can be accessed via both the corresponding menu and the Press Releases Section in the web
- 10.2Publications
The official population figures are disseminated via the INE website.
- 10.3On-line database
INEbase is the system the INE uses to store statistical information on the Internet. It contains all the information the INE produces in electronic formats. The primary organisation of the information follows the theme-based classification of the Inventory of Statistical Operations of the State General Administration . The basic unit of INEbase is the statistical operation, defined as the set of activities that lead to obtaining statistical results on a determined sector or subject based on the individually collected data. Also included in the scope of this definition are synthesis preparation.
Access to the figures on the https://www.ine.es website in INEBase, within the Demographics and Population-Municipal register:
- 10.4Micro-data access
A lot of statistical operations disseminate public domain anonymized files, available free of charge for downloading in the INE website Microdata Section
Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.
- 10.5Other
In addition to the population by municipality, other series of tables until 2021 on variations of the population and distribution of the municipalities according to size, are published.
- 10.6Documentation on methodology
- 10.7Quality documentation
Fields 10.6 to 17 of this document may be considered the quality report intended for users for this operation.
- 10.1News release
- 11Quality management
- 11.1Quality assurance
Quality assurance framework for the INE statistics is based on the ESSCoP, the European Statistics Code of Practice made by EUROSTAT. The ESSCoP is made up of 16 principles, gathered in three areas: Institutional Environment, Processes and Products. Each principle is associated with some indicators which make possible to measure it. In order to evaluate quality, EUROSTAT provides different tools: the indicators mentioned above, Self-assessment based on the DESAP model, peer review, user satisfaction surveys and other proceedings for evaluation.
Quality assurance framework for the INE statistics is based on the ESSCoP, the European Statistics Code of Practice made by EUROSTAT. The ESSCoP is made up of 16 principles, gathered in three areas: Institutional Environment, Processes and Products. Each principle is associated with some indicators which make possible to measure it. In order to evaluate quality, EUROSTAT provides different tools: the indicators mentioned above, Self-assessment based on the DESAP model, peer review, user satisfaction surveys and other proceedings for evaluation.
The official population figures of the Spanish municipalities are the result of an "administrative procedure" provided for in Law 7/1985, of April 2, Regulating the Bases of the Local Regime and in the Regulation of Population and Territorial Demarcation of the Local Entities approved by RD 1690/1986, which is defined in the Resolution of July 20, 2018 of the Presidency of the National Institute of Statistics and of the General Directorate of Autonomous and Local Cooperation, on technical instructions to the City Councils on the review annual municipal register and the procedure for obtaining the proposal for official population figures.
The procedure itself, by including a contrast between the registry files of the INE and those of the Municipal Councils, with the formulation of objections by the INE to the proposed figure of the Municipal Councils and the presentation of Allegations by the latter, as well as the report of discrepancies of the Registration Council, are a guarantee of quality.
Also the fact that the INE is the independent autonomous body that carries out the coordination of the municipal registers to avoid duplication between them and who transfers the relevant information from other organizations to update them, such as, for example, information on births and deaths, or of the groups of foreigners who must periodically renew their registration or for whom their residence in the municipality must be confirmed, among others.
- 11.2Quality assessment
The procedure is adjusted every year as new situations arise that make it advisable. They are raised in the Registration Council and the agreements are disseminated to all Municipal Councils through the IDA-Padrón exchange application for general knowledge, as far that they must adjust their management procedures or for the formulation of allegations.
- 11.1Quality assurance
- 12Relevance
- 12.1User needs
These population figures are official, and they are used to determine the number of delegates by electoral zone, to set the number of councilpersons to choose in the municipal elections, to make decisions that affect the financing and jurisdiction of the municipalities and for those purposes expressly set out by law.
Users worth noting include the following:
- Ministries and other public bodies
- Territorial Administrations (Autonomous Communities, provincial delegations and municipal councils)
- Universities and research centres
- Businesses
- The press and specialised media
- Individuals
- Other INE units
- The Congress and the Senate: parliamentary matters
- International organisations: Eurostat, OECD, etc.
On some occasions, the requests refer to population figures with different reference dates throughout the year, and cannot be answered, as by law, the Revision of the municipal registers from which the official population figures are derived must be carried out on 1 January each year.
- 12.2User satisfaction
The INE has carried out general user satisfaction surveys in 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019 and it plans to continue doing so every three years. The purpose of these surveys is to find out what users think about the quality of the information of the INE statistics and the extent to which their needs of information are covered. In addition, additional surveys are carried out in order to acknowledge better other fields such as dissemination of the information, quality of some publications...
On the INE website, in its section Methods and Projects / Quality and Code of Practice / INE quality management / User surveys are available surveys conducted to date.(Click next link)
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- 12.3Completeness
All of the information required, according to the relevant guidelines and regulations, is available. Therefore, the rate of compulsory information available is R1=100%.
- 12.1User needs
- 13Accuracy and reliability
- 13.1Overall accuracy
The global reliability of the figures is guaranteed by the procedure applied to obtain them, which is described in the Resolution of July 20, 2018. The figures published are those resulting after the estimation / dismissal of allegations.
- 13.2Sampling error
Sampling errors do not occur, as this is the direct use of a register.
- 13.3Non-sampling error
The data is from an administrative register, and all of the accepted units have information, with a possible existence of some occasional errors affecting the sex variable in approximately 0.14% of the records, and which are filtered in the different phases.
Regarding the register coverage, for Spaniards, it is considered that the incidence of omissions is very small, as registration is a requirement for many administrative processes.
Regarding over-coverage, in the case of Spaniards who transfer from Spain to locations abroad, this appears in the Municipal Register only if they register in the Consular Registers, which does not always occur, and therefore, they may continue to appear as residents in Spain, when they actually reside abroad.
As per foreign nationals who leave Spain and transfer to other countries, depending on whether or not they are community nationals, and according to the type of residence permit they have, they may remain registered in the Municipal Register for 2 or 5 years (according to the case), until a process for delisting by expiry is applied (for not community citizens and those without permanent residence permits, ENCSARP) or delisting due to undue registration (for the rest, NO_ENCSARP).
- 13.1Overall accuracy
- 14Timeliness and punctuality
- 14.1Timeliness
The official figures for year t are published by the end of December of year t, that is, following a TP2=365 days.
- 14.2Punctuality
The figures are made available on the INE website the day after publication of the Government Royal Decree in the Official State Gazette, stating that they are official.
- 14.1Timeliness
- 15Coherence and Comparability
- 15.1Comparability - geographical
All the data is comparable for any territorial breakdown, as they all come from the municipal registers, which are governed by the same regulations, and which are coordinated by the INE.
- 15.2Comparability - over time
The data from the statistics is comparable as of 1998, which are figures already obtained at 1 January each year, using the implementation of the new municipal register management system, and therefore, the number of comparable elements from the time series is CC2=26.
- 15.3Coherence - cross domain
The figures from the Continuous Municipal Register Statistics coincide with the figures from the Official Population Figures, given that they use the same source, and they are the result of the same procedure.
However, there are differences between the figures obtained in the Population Now Cast and those from the Population Censuses, which are justified by the different methodologies followed. Some of the differences with the figures from the Population Censuses are also due to the fact that they have different reference dates.
- 15.4Coherence - internal
All of the results are obtained from an administrative register, and they are coherent amongst themselves.
- 15.1Comparability - geographical
- 16Cost and burden
- 16.1Cost and burden
Given that the figures are obtained directly from the INE municipal register database, there are no cost associated with the collection, nor is there a response burden.
The stimation of the budgetary credit necessary to finance these statistics as foreseen in the 2023 Annual Programme comes to a total of 83,19 thousand euros.
- 16.1Cost and burden
- 17Data revision
- 17.1Data revision - policy
The INE of Spain has a policy which regulates the basic aspects of statistical data revision, seeking to ensure process transparency and product quality. This policy is laid out in the document approved by the INE board of directors on 13 March of 2015, which is available on the INE website, in the section "Methods and projects/Quality and Code of Practice/INE’s Quality management/INE’s Revision policy" (link).
This general policy sets the criteria that the different type of revisions should follow: routine revision- it is the case of statistics whose production process includes regular revisions-; more extensive revision- when methodological or basic reference source changes take place-; and exceptional revision- for instance, when an error appears in a published statistic-.
Once the figures are passed by the Government, and declared official by Royal Decree published in the BOE, they are no longer revised.
- 17.2Data revision - practice
Provisional data is not published.
- 17.1Data revision - policy
- 18Statistical processing
- 18.1Source data
The population figures are obtained using the coordination of the Municipal registers.
The Municipal register is an administrative register where the neighbours of the municipality are recorded. All persons living in Spain are obligated to register in the Municipal Register of the municipality where they regularly reside. Persons who live in several municipalities must register only in that in which they reside the longest during the year.
The municipal councils are responsible for the preparation, updating, revision and supervision thereof, as they must perform the actions and operations necessary for the data in their Municipal registers to coincide with reality.
The municipal councils manages the registers by computer, and in those cases in which they lack the means of doing so, the registers are managed by the Provincial Delegations. - 18.2Frequency of data collection
Law 7/1985, of 2 April, Regulating the Law on the Local Ordinances and the Population and Territorial Demarcation Regulation of Local Entities, establish that the Municipal Councils must submit those monthly variations that occur in the data in their Municipal registers to the National Statistics Institute, by computer or telematic media, so that the INE, in compliance with its obligations as set out in article 17.3 of the aforementioned Law on Local Ordinances, may perform the corresponding verifications for the purpose of correcting possible errors and avoiding duplicities, and so that the official figures resulting from the annual revisions may be declared official.
- 18.3Data collection
The municipal councils are in charge of keeping their municipal registers permanently updated, with the data stated by citizens, and they must carry out the updates and operations that are necessary for the data in their municipal registers to coincide with reality.
Likewise, each month, the municipal councils must send the INE all of the variations occurring therein (registrations, delistings and modifications), with the INE being in charge of the coordination of all of the municipal registers, so as to avoid duplicities occurring among the different municipal registers. - 18.4Data validation
The Municipal registers are administrative registers that are updated continuously.
The INE is attributed the coordination of the municipal registers of all of the municipalities, and of these with the Register of Spaniards Resident Abroad (RSRA), and in this way, the Municipal register database of the INE remains permanently updated.
The population figures are obtained following a complex contrasting process of the INE Municipal register database with the municipal register file from each municipal council (all referring to 1 January each year) up to the record (inhabitant) level.
The Registration Council, in compliance with the functions attributed to it in article 17.4 of Law 7/1985, and article 85 of the Population Regulation, passes the proposed decision of the INE President binding dispute resolution of the discrepancies between the Municipal councils and the latter, and notifies, with a binding nature, on the proposal of official population figures of Spanish municipalities that the Government of the INE President passes for approval via Royal Decree.
A process is also conducted to detect possible incoherences in the sex variable, contrasting with sources from the Home Office.
- 18.5Data compilation
The file from which the official population figures are obtained is filtered for the sex variable, so that no invalid values appear.
- 18.6Adjustment
Neither seasonal adjustments are made, nor are there decompositions of time series nor other similar methods.
- 18.1Source data
- 19Comment
- 19.1Comment
- 19.1Comment