Classification of Statistical Regional Units in Development Planning

The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) is a statistical classification method developed by the European Community Statistical Office (Eurostat) from the 1970s onwards to ensure that regional statistics are produced according to a single spatial classification, and which has been included in EU legislation since 1988.

In our country, the use of NUTS is based on the Turkish National Programme on the Adoption of the EU Acquis, adopted by the Council of Ministers Decision dated March 19, 2001, and the Accession Proceedings adopted by the European Commission at the Environment Council dated March 8, 2001. Partnership It started within the scope of the Document. In this context, with the work started in 2001 under the coordination of the State Planning Organization (DPT) Undersecretariat and the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), Statistical Regional Units in Turkey were defined and this classification came into force with the Council of Ministers Decision dated August 28, 2002. With this decision, NUTS, began to be used as the basis for the application of regional statistics and regional development policies, especially those of Development Agencies, in the national/regional and EU harmonization process. In the classification made, provinces were accepted as level 3, and the following 26 Level II and 12 Level I Regions were formed by grouping neighboring provinces.

Level II regions are an appropriate regional scale in national and regional analyses, they form the basis for the studies carried out in the EU candidacy process, and the regions that can benefit from structural funds within the scope of the EU cohesion policy convergence objective are determined on the Level II basis. Therefore, the following Level II regions have been determined as the basic development planning unit in the context of regional policies in our country.