Population of Mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands by Municipality (2023)
Description
Georeferenced dataset of the resident population in 2023 for every municipality of
peninsular Spain and the Balearic Islands, distributed as two GeoJSON files: a
full-resolution version and a simplified low-resolution version.
## Files
**Data**
- **`pop_ES_2023_HR.geojson`** — full-resolution municipal boundaries (~150 MB).
- **`pop_ES_2023_LR.geojson`** — geometry simplified with
`shapely.simplify(tolerance=0.001°, preserve_topology=True)` (~18 MB, ~88 %
smaller).
Both GeoJSON files contain the same 8,041 municipalities and identical attributes.
**Preview figures**
- **`pop_ES_2023_HR.geojson.pdf`** — vector preview map rendered from the
full-resolution dataset.
- **`pop_ES_2023_LR.geojson.pdf`** — vector preview map rendered from the
simplified dataset, provided for visual comparison with the full-resolution
version.
## Attributes
| Field | Type | Description |
|--------------|---------|-----------------------------------------------------------|
| `nombre` | string | Municipality name |
| `codmun_ine` | string | INE municipal code (5 digits) |
| `ccaa` | string | Autonomous Community |
| `provincia` | string | Province |
| `cod_nut3` | string | NUTS-3 code (Eurostat 2021 classification) |
| `pob_23` | int | Resident population on 1 January 2023 |
| `area_km2` | float | Municipal area in km² (computed in EPSG:3035) |
| `dens_pob` | float | Population density (inhabitants / km²) |
| `geometry` | Polygon / MultiPolygon | Municipal boundary |
## Coordinate Reference System
- **EPSG:4258** — ETRS89 geographic coordinates (latitude / longitude in degrees).
- Areas (`area_km2`) were computed after reprojecting the geometries to
**EPSG:3035** (ETRS89 / LAEA Europe), the standard equal-area projection
recommended by the European Environment Agency for pan-European analyses.
## Geographic coverage
Mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands. The following territories of the
original source were excluded from this release:
- Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands
- Autonomous City of Ceuta
- Autonomous City of Melilla
The resulting dataset covers 16 Autonomous Communities, 48 provinces and
50 NUTS-3 units (the province of Illes Balears is divided into three NUTS-3
regions: ES531 Mallorca, ES532 Menorca, ES533 Eivissa y Formentera).
## Source and processing
These files are a processed subset of the **"Cifras de Población 2023"** dataset
published by the *Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico*
(MITECO) of the Government of Spain, originally distributed as an ESRI shapefile.
- Original source:
<https://www.miteco.gob.es/es/cartografia-y-sig/ide/descargas/reto-demografico/datos-demograficos.html>
- Original publisher: MITECO
### Processing steps applied to the original shapefile
1. Loaded `CifraPob2023.shp` with GeoPandas (8,131 municipalities).
2. Removed administrative auxiliary fields:
`objectid, natcode, cod_nut1, cod_nut2, cod_ccaa, cod_pro`.
3. Computed `area_km2` from the geometry reprojected to EPSG:3035 and derived
`dens_pob = pob_23 / area_km2`.
4. Filtered out municipalities of Canarias, Ceuta and Melilla
(90 municipalities removed → 8 041 retained).
5. Reordered attributes to:
`nombre, codmun_ine, ccaa, provincia, cod_nut3, pob_23, area_km2, dens_pob, geometry`.
6. Exported to GeoJSON (full resolution and simplified versions).
## License and attribution
This processed dataset is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
The original MITECO source data are reused under their own terms; see the original publisher's legal notice for details:
<https://www.miteco.gob.es/es/atencion-al-ciudadano/aviso-legal.html>
