Statistical localities in Finland

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Statistical localities in Finland

• A need for a development work?

Ulla-Maarit SaarinenPlanning OfficerStatistics
FinlandTyöpajankatu 13FI-00022 STATISTICS
FINLANDTel 358 9 1734 3544 Fax 358 9
1734 3251 E-mail Ulla-Maarit.Saarinen_at_stat.fi
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Locality

• Built-up area, densely populated area, urban
  area, population agglomeration, population
  cluster
• Definitions population density, building
  density, land use, business/industrial
  activities, urban-like, ...
• In the legislation Finnish Road Traffic Act,
  Land Use and Building Act, Public Order Act
  talk about localities, but these
  localities are not defined as statistical
  localities.
• Term locality and statistical locality
• Who needs and why?
• The Act on State Subsidies
• the statistical locality population as the basis
  for payment of the locality supplement to
  municipalities

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Statistical locality

• Clusters of buildings with at least 200
  inhabitants and the distance between buildings
  should not exceed 200 metres.
• The Nordic definition of locality
• since 1960 (1950)
• takes into account the sparse population in
  Nordic countries
• only 20-30 of localities in Finland could be
  characterised as urban area in a European sense

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Delimitation of statistical localities in Finland

• Years 1960 - 1985 manual delimitation
• Years 1990 and 1995 automatic delimitation with
  manual restoration
• Census 2000 a new delimitation method grid
  buffering method

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Grid-buffer methodBuilding groups

• A grid of 100 m x 100 m formed over whole Finland
• Grids are categorized as
• unbuilt grids
• residential grids
• other building grids

Residential building
Other building
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Grid to polygons

• A buffer zone of 50 m is formed to residential
  building grids.
• A buffer zone of 75 m is formed to other building
  grids.

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The preform of localities and their satellites

• Areas with at least 200 inhabitants are selected.
• A buffer zone of 100 metres
• Jointing the pre-localities and satellites to
  one coverage

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The final statistical localities

• jointing polygons with 100 ms buffer
• returning to original size (-100 m)

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By-products

• holes, gaps
• built-up area

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The delimitation of statistical localities 2005

• Delimitition will be carried out this year with
  the grid buffering delimitation method that was
  developed in 2000
• But
  there is still
  a question who needs and what for delimitation
  and statistics of statistical localities are
  made for,
  
  and is there a need for developing the definition
  and delimatition?

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• The Act on State Subsidies
• the statistical locality population as the basis
  for payment of the locality supplement to
  municipalities

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Need for development?Critics and user needs

• Densely built-up areas with low population
  density
• Why industrial areas or work place areas with
  less than 200 residents are not localities?
• Different sized localities small villages, big
  cities
• Need for classification of localities?
• The definition has been based merely on
  morphological definition.
• Should it be more functional ?

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• Researchers, planners
• Statistical locality urban area?
• Statistical localities morphological locality,
  not functional locality
• takes into account only population/settlement
• cf. urban area - buildings, built-up area -
  populated, population density - land use -
  functions - economic/business/industry
  activities - etc.

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Development of locality definition in Nordic
countries

• Statistics Norway has redefined locality
  definition to better correspond to Norwegian
  circumstances and has defined and delimited
  free-time residential areas.
• Statistics Sweden has defined and delimited
  workplace and free-time residential areas.
• The Finnish Environment Institute has come up
  with its own locality definitions for monitoring
  urban structure in Finland.

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Examples of comparison of statistical localities
and localities defined by Environment Institute
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• Locality definition of Environment Institute
  differs from statistical localities
• the objective monitoring the urban structure
• the data is based on grids
• different criterias

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statistical locality
locality (Env. Inst.)
Peräseinäjoki
building
sq. km grid with population
sq. km grid with building(s)
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HATTULA
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HELSINKI
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Questions to be answered and development work to
be done in the near future

• More than one locality definition in Finland?
• Different needs and aspects -gt different locality
  definitions?
• Statistical locality is (only) one definition
  among others?

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• A need for new locality definitions?
• Work place areas outside statistical localities?
• Free-time residential areas outside statistical
  localities?
• Tourism areas outside statistical localities?
• Shopping areas outside statistical localities?
• or inside statistical localities?
• Zones/classification of localities?
• Big cities localities, suburban localities, ?
• CBD?
• Small villages (with less than 500 or 200
  inhabitants)?

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Examples of some first experiments to define new
free-time residential localities
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Delimiting free-time residential localities

• At least 30 or 50 residences
• Distance between residences not exceeding 150
  metres

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Free-time residence (summer cottage)
Free-time residential locality
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Archipelago in Turku region
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Ski resort of Saariselkä, Lapland
Free-time residential building Residential
building
Free-time residential locality
Statistical locality Env. Inst. locality
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Ski resort of Levi, Lapland
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-gt Discussions with interest groups (Env. Inst.,
ministries etc.) in 2006 2007 -gt The study
on development needs in 20062007
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Development of the Nordic (European) co-operation

• Possibility for common locality statistics?
• E.g. degree of locality population