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Population. By size of municipality. Counties and Aran, areas and provinces

Registered population. By size of municipality. Counties, areas and provinces Catalonia
Up to 500 From 501 to 2,000 From 2,001 to 5,000 From 5,001 to 10,000 From 10,001 to 50,000 More than 50,000 Total
2014 81,652 266,994 446,549 618,469 2,060,002 4,045,237 7,518,903
2013 81,634 266,577 432,770 630,328 2,078,082 4,064,259 7,553,650
2012 82,304 269,067 438,065 624,508 2,076,951 4,080,013 7,570,908
Source: Idescat. Municipal population register.
Note: Law 23/2010, of July 22, on the creation of the area of Penedès, divides Catalonia into eight territorial planning areas. This change implies that the data for the Metropolitan Area, Central Counties and Camp de Tarragona are not directly comparable with previous years.

Last update: December 30, 2014.

Methodological note

Definition of concepts

Municipality
Administrative constituency of a territorial nature, governed by a council, considered the basic unit of territorial organisation and primary element of citizen participation in public affairs, as established by Law 8/1987, of April 15 on municipalities and the local regime for Catalonia. A municipality enjoys its own autonomy, is of a legal character and has full capacity to exercise the public functions bestowed upon it, in order to represent the interests of its respective collective and to manage the public services that it assumed ownership of. The government and administration of the municipality correspond to the municipal council.
Population
All inhabitants of a given place. Since 1996, when the continuous management system was established for the Municipal Population Register, in accordance with Royal Decree 2612/1996, of December 20, official population figures for municipalities have been obtained annually using data referred to January 1 of each year.
Neighbour
Person who habitually lives in a municipality, whether present or absent on the date of reference. Acquisition of the condition of neighbour is produced as soon as that person is recorded on the civil register (padró). Those who habitually live in a municipality but are away on the date of reference are still considered neighbours of the municipality they usually live in. The concept of a neighbour substitutes the concepts of a present resident and absent resident in a municipality in accordance with Royal Decree 2612/1996, of December 20, which modified the Regulation for the population and territorial demarcation of local entities on July 11, 1986. The figure of the person in transit has also been eliminated.

Methodological aspects

The basic on information population by nationality and place of birth, as well as the population of the municipalities, is obtained from the Municipal Population Register.

The Municipal population register is the administrative record containing the residents of a given municipality and it constitutes proof that they reside in the municipality and have their usual home there. Population figures from the revision of the Register on 1 January are declared official in each of the municipalities by the Government of Spain, by means of a Royal Decree. The exploitation of the municipal population register provides figures on the number of people registered in the population census in each municipality in Catalonia. The official figures are available by municipality and they are broken down according to sex, age, nationality and place of birth.

Unavailable information is represented using the symbol ":". When the value is lower than that of the minimum unit to be able to estimate the statistical operation or if it effects statistical confidentiality, the symbol used is "..".