Establishment
The NUTS-region are based on the existing national administrative subdivisions. In countries where only one or two regional subdivisions exist, or where the size of existing subdivisions is too small, a second and/or third level is created. This may be on the first level (ex. France, Italy, Greece, and Spain), on the second (ex. Germany) and/or third level (ex. Belgium). In smaller countries, where the entire country would be placed on the NUTS 2 or even NUTS 3 level (ex. Luxembourg, Cyprus, Ireland), levels 1, 2 and/or 3 are identical to the level above and/or to the entire country.
The thresholds in the table below are used as guidelines for establishing the regions, but they are not applied rigidly. For example, both Melilla, with a population of 73,460 in 2009, and Lombardy, with a population of nearly ten million, are NUTS 2 regions.
| Level | Minimum | Maximum |
|---|---|---|
| NUTS 1 | 3 million | 7 million |
| NUTS 2 | 800 000 | 3 million |
| NUTS 3 | 150 000 | 800 000 |
Read more about this topic: Nomenclature Of Territorial Units For Statistics