Bruchsal, Germany, October 25, 2017 – GfK has released its Europe Map Edition 2017/2018, which includes thousands of updates to the previous year’s edition. The digital maps reveal Europe’s current administrative and postcode boundaries. As such, they provide the basis for carrying out accurate geographic analyses in geomarketing software and BI systems.
GfK’s new Europe Edition includes approximately 1,000 digital maps. These reflect the latest regional status and feature numerous new details and regional levels. The new maps also offer more granularity, particularly along coastlines and in cities. The maps provide comprehensive coverage down to Europe’s most detailed postcode and administrative levels, which correspond to the five-digit postcodes and municipalities, respectively. Also available is new 2017 market data on European purchasing power as well as inhabitants and households. Both the maps and market data are available immediately.
The updated maps reflect demographic, economic and political changes in each of the included European countries. These changes pose challenges to government and postal organizations that require comprehensive coverage for delivering services to inhabitants in a given country. The new maps feature updated coverage of the hundreds of regions such as municipalities and postcodes that have changed since the last update. This allows the aforementioned organizations to manage and plan their coverage areas with greater accuracy and efficiency.
“A precise, up-to-date cartographic basis is a prerequisite for successfully carrying out regional market analyses,” says Klaus Dittmann, head of cartography at GfK’s Geomarketing solution area. “Our new Europe Edition includes updated maps for all of Europe. This gives companies from all industries a reliable basis for geographic analyses of their markets and ope-rations.”
Outdated postcode boundaries are problematic, because these are the means by which address-based company and market data is linked to and visualized on digital maps. For example, if the postcode of a company site changes, any turnover generated by this site would be attributed to the wrong postcode if the underlying postcode boundaries are incorrect or outdated.
New additions
There are many new additions to the Europe Edition 2017/2018 due to changes to the postal and administrative levels in every European country. This year’s update includes thousands of adjustments to reflect these changes. Some of the more comprehensive changes are indicated on a country-by-country basis below:
Bulgaria
France
Great Britain
The maps of the postcode units (most detailed postcode level for Great Britain) and the postcode unit points (middle points of the postcode units) have been newly rendered on the basis of the most up-to-date sources.
Ireland
The map set for Ireland now also includes a map of the country’s 139 3-digit postcodes.
Italy
Croatia
Luxembourg
Macedonia
For the first time, the map set for Macedonia includes a map of the country’s 228 4-digit postcodes.
Netherlands
The administrative and postcode boundaries have been newly rendered on the basis of official vector data. Postcode boundaries are now accurate at the level of individual houses, and the country’s coastline is more detailed. The map set for the Netherlands now includes two new maps: a map of the country’s 12,820 “buurten” (neighborhoods) and a map of the country’s 456,714 6-digit postcodes.
Norway
The administrative and postcode boundaries were newly rendered on the basis of official vector data. Postcode boundaries are now accurate at the level of individual houses, and the country’s coastline is more detailed. The map set for Norway now also includes maps of the country’s 1,552 “delområde” (tracts) and 14,052 “grunnkretser” (units).
Poland
The administrative and postcode boundaries were newly rendered on the basis of official vector data. Postcode boundaries for Warsaw, Krakow, Łódź, Breslau,
Posen, Danzig, Gdynia and Sopot are now accurate at the level of individual houses.
Austria
The map set for Austria now includes a map of the country’s 8,825 enumeration districts, which comprise Austria’s most detailed statistical level. The administrative and postcode boundaries were also newly rendered on the basis of official vector data. Postcode boundaries are now accurate at the level of individual houses.
Sweden
Czech Republic
Turkey
Ukraine
The map set for the Ukraine includes a new map that combines the maps of the country’s three- and five-digit postcodes. This involved integrating the five-digit postcodes for the cities of Kiev, Charkiw and Dnipro into the map of the three-digit postcodes. The resulting map offers complete coverage of the country.
NUTS regions: version 2016 (new system as of 01.01.2018)
The Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics (NUTS) was created by Eurostat to provide a unified classification of regional units for the compilation of regional statistics for the European Union. This standard is updated in intervals every three-to-four years to reflect regional administrative changes.
Availability
The approximately 1,000 maps for 42 European countries are available in all standard map formats, including *.shp (ESRI), *.tab (MapInfo), *.lay
(RegioGraph) and Oracle Spatial. In addition to maps of postal and administrative levels, the country editions also include topographic details such as streets, bodies of water and city points categorized by number of inhabi-tants. All maps are vector-based and consequently offer infinite zoom and flexible viewing options.
Additional information
on GfK’s worldwide digital maps can be found here.
Print-quality illustrations
can be found here.
About GfK
GfK is the trusted source of relevant market and consumer information that enables its clients to make smarter decisions. More than 13,000 market research experts combine their passion with GfK’s long-standing data science experience. This allows GfK to deliver vital global insights matched with local market intelligence from more than 100 countries. By using innovative technologies and data sciences, GfK turns big data into smart data, enabling its clients to improve their competitive edge and enrich consu-mers’ experiences and choices.
Additional information can be found at www.gfk.com.
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