gisco_get_urban_audit: Urban Audit dataset

In giscoR: Download 'Eurostat' 'GISCO' Spatial Data

Urban Audit dataset

Description

This dataset contains the boundaries of cities ("CITIES"), greater cities ("GREATER_CITIES") and functional urban areas ("FUA") defined according to the EC-OECD city definition. It is used for the Eurostat Urban Audit data collection.

Downloads data from the aggregated GISCO Urban Audit file. To download single-unit Urban Audit files, use gisco_get_unit_urban_audit().

Usage

gisco_get_urban_audit(
  year = 2024,
  epsg = 4326,
  cache = TRUE,
  update_cache = FALSE,
  cache_dir = NULL,
  verbose = FALSE,
  spatialtype = c("RG", "LB"),
  country = NULL,
  level = c("all", "CITIES", "FUA", "GREATER_CITIES", "CITY", "KERN", "LUZ"),
  ext = "gpkg"
)

Arguments

year	A character string or numeric value with the release year of the file. One of \Sexpr[stage=render,results=rd]{giscoR:::db_values("urban_audit", "year",TRUE)}.
epsg	A character string or numeric value with the coordinate reference system as a 4-digit EPSG code. One of: "4326": WGS84. "3035": ETRS89 / ETRS-LAEA. "3857": Pseudo-Mercator.
cache	A logical value indicating whether to cache results. Defaults to TRUE. See Caching strategies section in gisco_set_cache_dir().
update_cache	A logical value indicating whether to refresh the cached file. Defaults to FALSE. When set to TRUE, it forces a new download.
cache_dir	A character string with a path to a cache directory. See Caching strategies section in gisco_set_cache_dir().
verbose	A logical value. If TRUE displays informational messages.
spatialtype	A character string with the type of geometry to return. Options available are: "RG": Regions - MULTIPOLYGON/POLYGON object. "LB": Labels - POINT object.
country	A character vector of country codes. It can be either a vector of country names, a vector of ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country codes or a vector of Eurostat country codes. See also countrycode::countrycode().
level	A character string with the Urban Audit level. Possible values are "all" (the default), which downloads the full dataset, "CITIES", "FUA" and, for versions prior to year = 2020, "GREATER_CITIES", "CITY", "KERN" or "LUZ".
ext	A character value with the extension of the file (default "gpkg"). One of \Sexpr[stage=render,results=rd]{giscoR:::db_values("urban_audit", "ext",TRUE)}.

Details

For more information, see: Eurostat - Statistics Explained.

Cities are defined at several conceptual levels:

• The core city ("CITIES"), using an administrative definition.

• The Functional Urban Area/Large Urban Zone ("FUA"), approximating the functional urban region. Coverage includes the EU, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. The dataset includes polygon features, point features and a related attribute table which can be joined on the URAU code field.

The "URAU_CATG" field defines the Urban Audit category:

• "C" = City.

• "F" = Functional urban area service type.

Value

A sf object.

Note

Check the download and usage provisions in gisco_attributions().

Source

https://gisco-services.ec.europa.eu/distribution/v2/.

Copyright: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/administrative-units.

See Also

See gisco_bulk_download() to perform a bulk download of datasets.

See gisco_get_unit_urban_audit() to download single-unit files.

Statistical unit datasets: gisco_get_census(), gisco_get_coastal_lines(), gisco_get_lau(), gisco_get_nuts()

Examples

cities <- gisco_get_urban_audit(year = 2024, level = "CITIES")

if (!is.null(cities)) {
  bcn <- cities[cities$URAU_NAME == "Barcelona", ]

  library(ggplot2)
  ggplot(bcn) +
    geom_sf()
}

giscoR documentation built on June 17, 2026, 9:10 a.m.