This data set contains the administrative boundaries at country level of the world and is based on the geometry from EBM v8.x. of EuroGeographics for the members of Eurogeographics, the Global Administrative Units Layer (2013) from FAO (UN) and geometry from the Turkish National Statistical Office. This dataset consists of 2 feature classes (regions, boundaries) per scale level and there are 6 different scale levels (100K, 1M, 3M, 10M, 20M and 60M). The public dataset is available at 1M, 3M, 10M, 20M, 60M, while the full dataset at 100K is restricted. This metadata only refers to the full dataset at 100k and shall only be used internally by the EEA. This metadata has been slightly adapted from the original metadata file provided by Eurostat (European Commission) and is to be used only for internal EEA purposes. For reference, the original metadata file provided by ESTAT (CNTR_2013.xml) is provided together with the dataset. The public dataset is available for download on http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/reference-data/administrative-units-statistical-units/countries#countries13.

GISCO (Geographic Information System of the COmmission) is responsible for meeting the European Commission's geographical information needs at 3 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. The datasets extracted from GISCO in its 2013 release and include in the EEA catalogue of geospatial datasets are: + Administrative boundaries at country level (COUNTRIES 2013) at 1:100.000 scale + Communes (COMMUNES 2013) at 1:100.000 scale + NUTS (NUTS 2013) at 1:100.000 scale

This data set contains the administrative boundaries at country level of the world and is based on the geometry from EBM v12.x. of EuroGeographics for the members of Eurogeographics, the Global Administrative Units Layer (2015) from FAO (UN) and geometry from the Turkish National Statistical Office. This dataset consists of 2 feature classes (regions, boundaries) per scale level and there are 6 different scale levels (100K, 1M, 3M, 10M, 20M and 60M). The public dataset is available at 1M, 3M, 10M, 20M, 60M, while the full dataset at 100K is restricted. This metadata only refers to the full dataset (polygon) at 100k (CNTR_RG_100K_2016 in the GISCO database) and shall only be used internally by the EEA. This metadata has been slightly adapted from the original metadata file provided by Eurostat (European Commission) and is to be used only for internal EEA purposes. For reference, the original metadata file provided by ESTAT (CNTR_2016.xml) is provided together with the dataset. The public dataset is available for download on http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/GISCO/distribution/v2/countries/countries-2016-files.html

The Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL) is an initiative implemented by FAO within the EC-FAO Food Security Programme funded by the European Commission (http://www.foodsecinfoaction.org/News/news_06_06.htm). The GAUL aims at compiling and disseminating the most reliable spatial information on administrative units for all the countries in the world, providing a contribution to the standardization of the spatial dataset representing administrative units. The GAUL always maintains global layers with a unified coding system at country, first (e.g. regions) and second administrative levels (e.g. districts). In addition, when data is available, it provides layers on a country by country basis down to third, fourth and lowers levels. The GAUL is released once a year and the target beneficiary of the GAUL data is the UN community, the Universities and other authorized international and national institutions/agencies. Data might not be officially validated by authoritative national sources and can not be distributed to the general public. A disclaimer should always accompany any use of the GAUL data. About 21 countries have been updated respect to the previous release (see countries_updated.dbf). The GAUL keeps track of administrative units that has been changed, added or dismissed in the past for political causes. Changes implemented in different years are recorded in the GAUL on different layers. For this reason the GAUL product is not a single layer but a group of layers, named "GAUL Set" (see Gaul_Set.pdf). The original dataset containing Level 0 administrative units has been combined by EEA with some attributes data provided within GAUL in a separate file. No data from outside GAUL have been used and it is possible to reconstruct the original dataset by removing the extra attributes added.

This dataset adds the delineation of a Kosovo under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244/99 feature to the administrative units at country level from 2010 dataset provided by GISCO. The country identifier (cntr_id) for the Kosovo under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244/99 feature is set to 'XK' and its associated object_id to 999. Users should pay attention to the existence of another feature with cntr_id set to 'XK' in Africa (associated object_id: 245). The Kosovo under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244/99 feature has been delineated using the boundaries of the following communes extracted from the administrative units at commune level from 2010 provided by GISCO: comm_id --------- RS01, RS02, RS03, RS04, RS05, RS06, RS07, RS08, RS09, RS10, RS11, RS12, RS13, RS14, RS15, RS16, RS17, RS18, RS19, RS20, RS21, RS22, RS23, RS24, RS25, RS26, RS27, RS28, RS29, RS30, RS31, RS32, RS33, RS34, RS35, RS36, RS37

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 maps NUTS3 regions (Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics) or where not available: Administrative Units from EuroBoundaryMap onto an Inspire compliant grid with 100m resolution. This dataset is to be used with its associated legend file (EBMv5_100m.legend_final).

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.

The 'GISCO NUTS 2021' data set represents the NUTS 2021 regulation and statistical regions by means of multipart polygon, polyline and point topology. The NUTS geographical information is completed by attribute tables and a set of cartographic help lines to better visualize multipart polygonal regions. The NUTS nomenclature is a hierarchical classification of statistical regions defined by Eurostat. The NUTS classification subdivides the EU economic territory into 3 statistical levels. The NUTS 2021 classification has been established through the Commission Delegated Regulation 2019/1755, which entered into force on 8th August 2019 and applies from 1st January 2021. A non official NUTS-like classification has been defined for the EFTA countries and the candidate countries. At present, six scale ranges (100K, 1M, 3M, 10M and 20M, 60M) are maintained in the GISCO geodatabase. The polygon and boundary classes delineate the regions, while the points provide an anchor for each region. Associated tables contain basic information such as the name of the region. The public data set will be available at 1M, 3M, 10M, 20M, 60M, while the full data set at 100K is restricted. The data set covers EU Member States, EFTA countries, EU candidate countries and the UK. Following the departure of the UK from the European Union, the UK is no longer flagged as an EU Member State but retains its place in the NUTS and statistical regions data set. This metadata only refers to the full NUTS2021 dataset (polygons) at 100k (NUTS_RG_100K_2021), which is derived from the EuroBoundary Map 2020 (EBM2020) from Eurogeographics as well as GISCO NUTS 2016 (from Turkey). With the dataset it is also provided the table NUTS_AT_2021.dbf and an excel file NUTS2016-NUTS2021.xlsx with the list of changes between 2016 and 2021. IMPORTANT NOTE: Additional information, including the conditions of use and acknowledgement notice is included in the document provided with the dataset "GISCO NUTS 2021 Additional Information.pdf". Public access to this data set is restricted due to intellectual property rights. It shall only be used internally by the EEA, its ETCs and subcontractors working on behalf of 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. An introduction to the NUTS classification is available here: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nuts/overview.