Population, countries & regions

Separate samples are drawn for Northern Ireland and Great Britain starting with Eurobarometer 3 (1975) and up to Eurobarometer 89.1. Starting with Eurobarometer 89.2 Northern Ireland is covered as a part of the United Kingdom sample. Until Eurobarometer 33 (Spring 1990) only West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) is covered. After the re-unification of Germany and starting with Eurobarometer 34 separate samples are drawn for West-Germany and East-Germany (former German Democratic Republic). Berlin is split up between West and East until Eurobarometer 71.2, starting with survey 71.3 (June 2009) Berlin is completely allocated to East-Germany in accordance with the practice in official statistics.

The most detailed geographical subdivision level on which Eurobarometer data sets can be broken down usually correspond to the country specific regional levels applied in the sampling procedure. These GEOGRAPHIC UNITS are coded in the REGION variable (P7). For each country the relation to the official NUTS classification (EUROSTAT Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) is documented in the variable description. Further documentation is available for Eurobarometer surveys 62 to 77, including SPSS syntax for recoding the original variables to the official NUTS codes (if applicable) [PDF (167 kB)].

Initially the Eurobarometer surveys were only conducted in EU/EC member countries and in accordance with the enlargement process. In addition and starting with Eurobarometer 62 (2004) Accession (AC) and Candidate Countries (CC) are included intermittently, replacing the Candidate Countries Eurobarometer series. Occasionally one or more EFTA countries are also surveyed. The United Kingdom is being surveyed in the framework of the Standard Eurobarometer surveys since its withdrawal from the European Union.