Summary

Phase 1: The 27 NUTS (2013) level 2 areas are based on the administrative regions of France.

Phase 2: The French NSI, INSEE, combines 16 of the 27 regions into seven, resulting in 18 administrative regions. These areas are sometimes called "grandes régions," but that term appears to be generic. Also, the name of region #24 has been changed, from "Centre" to "Centre-Val de Loire." (Strictly speaking, NUTS areas are used only by Eurostat, whereas NSIs use their respective national geographic classification. For consistency, we use the same geo codes for both, but there are intervals when the two classifications desynchronize.)

Phase 3: At NUTS (2016) level 1 there are 14 areas: one unchanged, two recoded and relabeled, five promoted from NUTS 2 status, and six mergers of NUTS 2 areas.

A concordance is attached. It provides the INSEE numeric codes and names for each area, and the Data Buffet geo codes; for completeness, it also shows the 11 unchanged NUTS (2013) level regions and the remaining NUTS (2016) level areas.

Successive changes

Impacted releases by theme (date of our change)

• Demographics:
• Change: Births (Jul. 2016)
• Change: Deaths (May 2017)
• Rename: Population by age (Jun. 2017)
• Change: Population by age (Jun. 2017)
• Labor:
• Change: Payroll employment (Q) (Feb. 2016)
• Change: Payroll employment (A) (Mar. 2016)
• Change: Wages by industry (A) (Aug. 2016)
• Change: Employment (A) (Jan. 2017)
• Rename: Employment by broad industry aggregate (Jun. 2017)
• Change: Unemployment rate (Q) (Aug. 2017)
• Change: Unemployment rate (A) (Aug. 2017)
• National accounts:
• Change: GVA by industry under ESA 2010 (Apr. 2016)
• Change: GDP (Jan. 2017)
• Real estate:
• New: Non-res permits and starts (Mar. 2017)
• Other:
• Change: Business bankruptcies (Feb. 2017)
• Change: Household disposable income (May 2017)

References

At Eurostat:

• Glossary: Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS)
• NUTS - Overview
• History of NUTS
• RAMON - Index

At INSEE:

• ZEAT areas and NUTS 1 (FR, Oct. 2016)
• ZEAT areas and NUTS 1 (EN, Oct. 2016)
• La nouvelle nomenclature des codes régions (defunct)

Other:

• Les grandes régions françaises ont toutes un nouveau nom (Jun. 2016, La Croix)
• Regions of France (Wikipedia)

Updates

• Mar. 2016
• Jul. 2016
• Feb. 2017
• Mar. 2017 - INSEE document no longer accessible. Correct the attachment, which in the "2016 final" column erroneously lists capital city names, not region names.
• May 2017 - Business bankruptcies, stage of construction, deaths. Update attachment with IFRA_^^^^-type geo codes for NUTS 2016.
• Jun. 19 - Table of successive changes.
• Jun. 29 - Population by age.
• Aug. 9 - Income, unemployment rate (Q). Add 2016 column to table.
• Oct. 12 - Unemployment rate (A).

• kbmedc_ifra_geos_20170526.xlsx