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Listing of Municipalities and their Codes, by Province

• 1Contact
  • 1.1Contact organisation
    National Statistics Institute of Spain
    
  • 1.5Contact mail address

    Avenida de Manoteras 50-52 - 28050 Madrid

    
    
• 2Metadata update
  • 2.1Metadata last certified
    07/02/2024
  • 2.2Metadata last posted
    09/02/2023
  • 2.3Metadata last update
    07/02/2024
• 3Statistical presentation
  • 3.1Data description

    The names of the municipalities and provinces presented are those which appear in the Register of Local Institutions (REL) of the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations. In this register, created by Royal Decree 382/1986, of 10 February, following the provisions established in Law 7/1985, of 2 April, regulating the rules of the local government system, all local institutions must be registered, understanding as such the municipalities, provinces, islands, institutions of territorial scope smaller than the municipality and municipal associations.

    The modifications registered during the previous year are communicated to the INE by the REL as soon as they are registered in the same.

  • 3.2Classification system
    • Clasificaciones utilizadas

      The National Statistics Institute is the body in charge of assigning the codes corresponding to each municipality, these are made up of five digits: the first two correspond to the code of the province and the remaining three to the code of the municipality within it. Likewise, a sixth control digit is published which, assigned by means of a calculation rule, allows the detection of recording and coding errors.

      
      
      

      The three-digit code is assigned correlatively by alphabetical order at provincial level for the municipalities existing on 31-12-1970, which has been maintained until today. Newly created municipalities are assigned a code beginning with 9 correlative to the last existing one within each province, while the codes of municipalities that have disappeared have not been reused, unless an existing municipality is registered after 1970, for which the code that it had on the date of deregistration is recorded.

  • 3.3Sector coverage

    All the Autonomous Communities, provinces, islands and all the municipalities of the national territory registered in the REL, including the Autonomous Cities of Ceuta and Melilla, are related to their codes.

  • 3.4Statistical concepts and definitions
    • Province ( Article 141.1 of the Spanish Constitution)
      The province is a local institution with its own legal status, determined by grouping municipalities and dividing territories in order to fulfil State activities. Any alteration in the provincial limits is to be approved by the General Courts by means of constitutional law.
  • 3.5Statistical unit

    Municipality

  • 3.6Statistical population

    All the Autonomous Communities, provinces, islands and all the municipalities of the national territory registered in the REL are related to their codes.

  • 3.7Reference area

    All the Autonomous Communities, provinces, islands and all the municipalities of the national territory registered in the REL, including the Autonomous Cities of Ceuta and Melilla, are related to their codes.

  • 3.8Time coverage

    The coding of the municipalities dates from 1970. 

  • 3.9Base period

    The three-digit code was correlatively assigned by alphabetical order at the provincial level for the municipalities existing in 31-12-1970, which has been maintained until now.

• 4Unit of measure
  • 4.1Unit of measure
• 5Reference period
  • 5.1Reference period

    The list of municipalities ordered by province and, within this, by municipality code and by islands refers to 1 January of each year

    The modifications registered during the year until obtaining the list of the following year are published in a table as they become known through the Register of Local Institutions.

    Data referred to the period: Anual A: 2024

• 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).

    
    

    In the Registry of Local Institutions (REL) of the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations, created by Royal Decree 382/1986 of 10 February, following the provisions established in Law 7/1985 of 2 April, regulating the rules of the local government system, all local institutions must be registered, understanding as such the municipalities, provinces, islands, institutions of territorial scope smaller than the municipality and municipal associations.

  • 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.
    

    The INE provides the REL with the code of newly created municipalities for registration in the same.

• 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 register, the data is not subject to confidentiality.

     

• 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

    
    
• 9Frequency of dissemination
  • 9.1Frequency of dissemination

    The List of municipalities on 1 January and the modifications registered the previous year are disseminated annually.

    The modifications registered during the year are published as they become known through the Register of Local Institutions.

• 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 list of municipalities, referring to 1 January of each year, ordered by province and, within this, by name of municipality, and by islands, as well as the modifications registered the previous year and during the current year are disseminated through 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 List of municipalities, provinces, autonomous communities and cities and their codes on INEBASE in the section Demography and Population-Register. Municipalities' Population - Official Population Figures of Spanish Municipalities: Revision of the Municipal Register. Related links :

    https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INEbase/en/operacion.htm?c=Estadistica_C&cid=1254736177031&menu=ultiDatos&idp=1254734710990

     

  • 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
    

    Users can obtain, free of charge, the complete file with the list of municipalities with their respective codes by provinces and/or islands as well as those of the provinces, Autonomous Communities and islands.

    There is no anonymised data.

  • 10.5Other

    Given the nature of the register, it includes all the existing coding up to the administrative level of the municipality.

  • 10.6Documentation on methodology

    A description is available at the following link:

    https://www.ine.es/en/daco/daco42/codmun/codmun00i_en.htm

  • 10.7Quality documentation

    Sections 10.6 to 17 of this document are the user-oriented quality report for this operation.

• 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.

    
    

    The Register of Local Institutions communicates all the modifications that are registered in it throughout the calendar year. At the end of the year and before updating the complete list of municipalities by provinces with their codes referring to 1 January, it is confirmed with the aforementioned register that all the modifications to be included are effectively all those registered during the year prior to the reference year.

     

  • 11.2Quality assessment

    Evaluated with REL at the end of the year.

• 12Relevance
  • 12.1User needs

    The use of territorial coding is essential in the different Units of the INE for obtaining statistical results aggregated at all territorial levels.

    The use of the list of codes is generalised in the computerised processing of data in which the territorial location is relevant.

    Users to highlight are:

    -Ministries and other public agencies

    -Territorial Administrations (autonomous communities, provincial councils and city councils)

    -Universities and research centres

    -Companies

    -Individuals

    -Other INE units

    -International organisations: Eurostat...

  • 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)

     

    
    

    Given the nature of the register, the user is provided with all the existing coding up to the administrative level of the municipality.

  • 12.3Completeness

    All territorial levels are coded: Autonomous Communities, provinces, municipalities, islands and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla.

• 13Accuracy and reliability
  • 13.1Overall accuracy

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

  • 13.2Sampling error

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

  • 13.3Non-sampling error

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

• 14Timeliness and punctuality
  • 14.1Timeliness

    TP2=1 month

    The List of municipalities and codes by provinces on 1 January of each year is published within one month of the reference date.

    Changes which occur throughout the year are published in a table at the time they are communicated by the Registry of Local Institutions, so that information on the changes is available as soon as they occur, although the complete list is published once a year with reference to January 1.

  • 14.2Punctuality

    The list of municipalities and codes by provinces at 1 January is published punctually on the day established in the publications calendar.

     

• 15Coherence and Comparability
  • 15.1Comparability - geographical

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

  • 15.2Comparability - over time

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

  • 15.3Coherence - cross domain

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

  • 15.4Coherence - internal

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

• 16Cost and burden
  • 16.1Cost and burden

    The estimation of the budgetary credit necessary to finance these statistics, as foreseen in the 2024 Annual Programme, comes to a total of 78,68 thousand euros.

    Since the information comes from an administrative register there are no costs for the respondent.

• 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-.

    
    

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

  • 17.2Data revision - practice

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

• 18Statistical processing
  • 18.1Source data

    The modifications registered during the year prior to the reference year are communicated to the INE through the REL and may be caused by:

    1.a) Alterations to municipalities, registered during the said period, which are covered in sections a), b), and c) of article 3.1 of the Revised Text of the legal provisions in force regarding the local government system, in other words, those that have occurred:
    a) By incorporation of one or more municipalities to another or other neighbouring municipalities.
    b) By merger of two or more neighbouring municipalities.
    c) By segregation of the part of the territory of one or several municipalities to build another independent one.
    1.b) Changes in the official names of municipalities.

    
    2-Corrections carried out in the names of some municipalities as a consequence of the filtering carried out by the Register of Local Institutions with the Autonomous Communities.

  • 18.2Frequency of data collection

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

  • 18.3Data collection

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

  • 18.4Data validation

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

  • 18.5Data compilation

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

  • 18.6Adjustment

    Given the nature of the operation, these concepts are not applicable.

• 19Comment
  • 19.1Comment