A methodology for data analysis at municipal level with moving boundaries

communes nouvellesGabriel Bideau, a Ph.D. Student at the Université Paris Cité and a member of Géographie-cités, is preparing a thesis entitled “After the inter-municipalities, the new French communes as forms of territorial restructuring and local governance”, under the supervision of Renaud Le Goix, professor at the UPC.

This data paper, which he co-authored with Ronan Ysebaert (Université Paris Cité – UMS 2414, Riate) in the journal Cybergeo, presents the creation of a database bringing together all the French municipalities while giving a specific place to those which have undergone a merger process between 2012 et 2022: “the new municipalities” (communes nouvelles). Potential data gap and consistency issues arise with the creation of these new territorial entities aggregating municipal mergers. Using data from official statistics (INSEE – National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies – and IGN – National Geographic Institute), this paper describes a process of compilation and aggregation of data. The method is detailed here, to allow its reproducibility.

Download Gabriel Bideau et Ronan Ysebaert, « Data paper  : Les communes nouvelles françaises (2012-2022)  : une méthode pour l’analyse de données à l’échelon municipal selon des limites évolutives », Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography , Data papers, document 1027, published online on August 04, 2022.

Read also :

French communes nouvelles (2010-2020): An analysis of these reshaped everyday territories.  In « L’Espace géographique » n°2021-1/2,  juillet 2022.