GISCO (Geographic Information System of the COmmission) is responsible for meeting the European Commission's geographical information needs at three levels: the European Union, its member countries, and its regions. In addition to creating statistical and other thematic maps, GISCO manages a database of geographical information, and provides related services to the Commission. Its database contains core geographical data covering the whole of Europe, such as administrative boundaries, and thematic geospatial information, such as population grid data. Some data are available for download by the general public and may be used for non-commercial purposes. For further details and information about any forthcoming new or updated datasets, see http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata. This metadata refers to the whole content of GISCO reference database extracted in July 2018, which contains both public datasets and datasets to be used only internally by the EEA. The document GISCO-ConditionsOfUse.pdf provided with the dataset gives information on the copyrighted data sources, the mandatory acknowledgement clauses and re-dissemination rights. The license conditions for EuroGeographic datasets in GISCO are provided in a standalone document "LicenseConditions_EuroGeographics.pdf". The database is provided in GDB and in SQLITE, with datasets at scales from 1:60M to 1:100K, with reference years spanning until 2016. The database manual, a file with the content of the database, and a document with the naming conventions are also provided with the database. For particular datasets extracted from this database (NUTS 2016 and COUNTRIES 2016) please refer to the associated resources in the EEA SDI catalogue. NOTE: This metadata file is only for internal EEA purposes and in no case replaces the official metadata provided by Eurostat.

Metropolitan regions 2021 are NUTS 3 regions or a combination of NUTS 3 regions which represent all agglomerations of at least 250 000 inhabitants. Version 2021 is based on NUTS 2021, based on the Commission Delegated Regulation 2019/1755. These agglomerations were identified using the Urban Audit's Functional Urban Area (FUA). Each agglomeration is represented by at least one NUTS 3 region. If in an adjacent NUTS 3 region more than 50% of the population also lives within this agglomeration, it is included in the metro. For more information see: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/metropolitan-regions/background https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Territorial_typologies_manual_-_metropolitan_regions IMPORTANT NOTE: This metadata is adapted from the corresponding Eurostat GISCO metadata and it is intended only for internal EEA use.

This data set shows pan European administrative boundaries down to commune level version 2010. Communes are equivalent to Local Administrative Units, level 2 (LAU2), except for GR (LAU1) and SI (so called LAU3). The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) and the LAU nomenclature are hierarchical classifications of statistical regions that together subdivide the EU economic territory into regions of five different levels (NUTS 1, 2 and 3 and LAU 1, 2, respectively, moving from larger to smaller territorial units). The NUTS classification has been officially established through Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council and amendments. A non official NUTS-like classification has been defined for the non-EU countries. The LAU classification is not covered by any legislative act. An introduction to the NUTS classification is available here: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/nuts_nomenclature/introduction The data set is based on EuroBoundaryMap v. 5.0 from Eurogeographics. Geographical extent covers the European Union 27, EFTA countries, Croatia, Serbia (including Kosovo UNSCR 1244) Greenland, Moldova and Ukraine. The scale of the data set is 1:100 000. The data set (100K - 60M) is available to EEA due to EEA having a valid EBM v5.0 licence. These metadata are derived from the original metadata records available at Inspire@EC.

This dataset contains administrative boundaries at country level. This dataset contains 2 feature classes (regions and boundaries) per scale level and there are 6 different scale levels (100K, 1M, 3M, 10M, 20M and 60M). In addition to those 12 feature classes, there is an additional scale-independent feature class for the labels. This dataset has been extracted from the GISCO database [CNTR_2020] maintained by Eurostat (European Commission). The extent of the feature classes covers the entire world. The countries dataset is used mainly for mapping purposes. This dataset is created by aligning the EBM 2020 dataset (Reference date 31.12.2018) of EuroGeographics (for EuroGeographics members), with the GISCO 2016 country data. All countries that are fully available in EBM (EU, EFTA, Cooperating Countries, Andorra, Belarus, Greenland, Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine) are used as the master dataset whose boundaries are not amended. The dataset is available for public use at 1M, 3M, 10M, 20M, 60M, while the full dataset at 100K is restricted. The public dataset for 2020 will be soon available for download on https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/reference-data/administrative-units-statistical-units/countries. IMPORTANT NOTE: This metadata shall only be used internally by the EEA. This metadata has been slightly adapted from the original metadata information provided by Eurostat (European Commission) and is to be used only for internal EEA purposes. For reference, the original metadata information provided by ESTAT (COUNTRIES_2020.xml) is provided together with the dataset as well as a copy from the information available on this dataset on the GISCO wiki (CNTR2020_GISCOWiki.pdf extracted on 23.04.2020).

Under the law of the sea, an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is a sea zone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources. It stretches from the seaward edge of the state territorial sea out to 200 nautical miles from its coast. The data set has been derived from the World Maritime Boundaries v5.0 dataset from the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) and integrated with the datasets "Communes 2010 – European Commission, Eurostat/GISCO", "Countries 2010, European Commission - Eurostat/GISCO", "Coastlines 2010, European Commission - Eurostat/GISCO". The data set (100K - 60M) is available to EEA due to EEA having a valid EBM v5.0 licence. These metadata are derived from the original metadata records available at Inspire@EC.

GISCO (Geographic Information System of the COmmission) is responsible for meeting the European Commission's geographical information needs at three levels: the European Union, its member countries, and its regions. In addition to creating statistical and other thematic maps, GISCO manages a database of geographical information, and provides related services to the Commission. Its database contains core geographical data covering the whole of Europe, such as administrative boundaries, and thematic geospatial information, such as population grid data. Some data are available for download by the general public and may be used for non-commercial purposes. For further details and information about any forthcoming new or updated datasets, see http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata. This metadata refers to the whole content of GISCO reference database extracted in June 2020, which contains both public datasets (also available for the general public through http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata) and datasets to be used only internally by the EEA (typically, but not only, GISCO datasets at 1:100k). The document GISCO-ConditionsOfUse.pdf provided with the dataset gives information on the copyrighted data sources, the mandatory acknowledgement clauses and re-dissemination rights. The license conditions for EuroGeographic datasets in GISCO are provided in a standalone document "LicenseConditions_EuroGeographics.pdf". The database is provided in GPKG files, with datasets at scales from 1:60M to 1:100K, with reference years spanning until 2021 (e.g. NUTS 2021). Attribute files are provided in CSV. The database manual, a file with the content of the database, a glossary, and a document with the naming conventions are also provided with the database. The main updates with respect to the previous version of the full database in the SDI (from Jul. 2018) are the addition of the following datasets: - Administrative boundaries at country level, 2020 (CNTR_2020) - Administrative boundaries at commune level, 2016 (COMM_2016) - Coastline boundaries, 2016 (COAS_2016) - Exclusive Economic Zones, 2016 (EEZ_2016) - Farm Accountancy Data Network based on NUTS 2016, 2018 (FADN_2018) - Local Administrative Units, 2018 (LAU_2018) - Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, 2021 (NUTS_2021) - Political regions (NB.: defined by the Committee of the Regions), 2018 (POLREG_2018) - Pan-European Settlements, 2016 (STLL_2016) and 2018 (STLL_2018) - Transport Networks (NB.: railway lines, railway stations, roads, road junctions, levelcrossings, ferry routs and custom points), 2019 (TRAN_2019) - Urban Audit Areas, 2018 (URAU_2018) and 2020 (URAU_2020) NOTE: This metadata file is only for internal EEA purposes and in no case replaces the official metadata provided by Eurostat. For specific GISCO datasets included in this version there are individual EEA metadata files in the SDI: NUTS_2021 and CNTR_2020. For other GISCO datasets in the SDI, it is recommended to use the version included in this dataset. The original metadata files from Eurostat for the different GISCO datasets are available via ECAS login through the Eurostat metadata portal on https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/inspire-sdi/srv/eng/catalog.search#/home. For the public products metadata can also be downloaded from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata. For more information about the full database or any of its datasets, please contact the SDI Team (sdi@eea.europa.eu).

As a permanent service of Eurostat, GISCO: promotes and stimulates the use of GIS within the European Statistical System and the Commission; manages and disseminates the Geographical reference database of the Commission; acts as a reference centre concerning GIS; promotes geo-referencing of statistics and collaboration between national statistical institutes and mapping agencies; pursues and ensures standardisation and harmonisation in the exchange of Geographic Information; co-leads the INSPIRE initiative on the introduction of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure. Within the framework of the GISCO project, an extensive geo-referenced database has been developed. One of the main topics of the GISCO mandate is to extend, maintain and update this database. List of data sets offered by GISCO per ISO 19115 topic category (short name in []): a) Farming: farm accountancy data network [FADN] b) Biota: Natural Vegetation [VEGT], Biogeographical Zones [BIOG], Biotopes [BIOT] c) Boundaries: Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS + Statistical Regions) [NUTS], Communes [COMM], Subcommunes [SCOM], Administrative regions [ADRG], Countries [CNTR] d) Climatology / Meteorology / Atmosphere: Climate [CLIM] e) Economy: Fishing Areas [FISH] f) Elevation: Digital Elevation Model [DEM], Bathimetry [BATH] g) Environment: Land Quality [LNQU], Designated Areas [DSIG] h) Geo-scientific information: Soil Erosion Risk [SOER], Geology Geomorphology ErosionTrend [ERTR], Soil [SOIL], Sediments Discharges [SDDS], Coastal Erosion [COER] i) Imagery/Base maps/Earth cover: Land Cover [LCOV] j) Inland waters: Water Patterns [WTPT], Lakes [LAKE], Watersheds [WTSH] k) Locations: Geographical Grid [GGGR], LUCAS [LUCA], Settlements [STTL], Gazetteer [GAZZ] l) Oceans: Coastline boundaries [COAS], Sea Level rise [SELV] m) Planning/Cadastre: Inter Regional [IREG], Leader Zones [LEAD], Less Favoured Areas [LFAV], National Support [NTSU], Structural Funds Zones [STFU], Urban Audit [URAU] n) Society: Population [POPU], Degree of urbanisation [DGUR] o) Transportation: Airports [AIRP], Ferry links [FERR], Ports [PORT], Road infrastructure [ROAD], Railway infrastructure [RAIL] p) Utilities/Communication: Nuclear Power [NUPW], Energy Production [ENPR], Energy Transport [ENTR] Further details can be found in gisco_naming_conventions_20090831.pdf

This data set represents the coastlines of the world and is based on the European Boundary Map v5.0. from EuroGeographics (scale 1:100.000) (for Eurogeographics members) and the Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL) 2008 from FAO (UN) (scale 1:1M and smaller). The data set (100K - 60M) is available to EEA due to EEA having a valid EBM v5.0 licence. These metadata are derived from the original metadata records available at Inspire@EC.

This data set represents the regions for level 1, 2 and 3 of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) for 2010. The NUTS nomenclature is a hierarchical classification of statistical regions and subdivides the EU economic territory into regions of three different levels (NUTS 1, 2 and 3, respectively, moving from larger to smaller territorial units). NUTS 1 is the most aggregated level. The NUTS classification has been officially established through Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council and amendments. A non official NUTS-like classification has been defined for the EFTA countries and candidate countries. An introduction to the NUTS classification is available here: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/nuts_nomenclature/introduction This data set has been created mainly from the EuroBoundary Map v 5.0 (Eurogeographics), geographic information from TurkStat for Turkey, the Global Administrative Unit Layer from FAO (UN) for Macedonia and a list of communes per statistical region provided by the countries. Six scale ranges (100K, 1M, 3M, 10M and 20M, 60M) are available. The public data set (1M - 60M) is available for download at http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/gisco_Geographical_information_maps/popups/references/administrative_units_statistical_units_1 The full data set (100K - 60M) is available to EEA due to EEA having a valid EBM v5.0 licence. Coverage is the economical territory of the EU, EFTA countries and candidate countries as in 2010. These metadata are derived from the original metadata records available at Inspire@EC.

GISCO is a Eurostat service which promotes and stimulates the use of GIS within the European Statistical System and the Commission. It is responsible for the management and dissemination of the Geographical reference database of the Commission. It produces maps, spatial analysis, promotes geo-referencing of statistics and provides user support for Commission users of GIS. GISCO is one of the leaders of the INSPIRE initiative, supporting the implementation of the directive for the establishment of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure. The datasets extracted from GISCO in August 2012 are for the year 2010: + Administrative boundaries at country level + Coastlines + Communes + EEZ + NUTS These metadata are derived from the original metadata records available at Inspire@EC.