Description
The statistics on buildings and free-time residences are produced annually and describe the existing stock and number of buildings and free-time residences on the last day of the year. Light-structured shelters and kiosks, buildings used for agricultural production only, or separate sauna or utility buildings of the residential buildings included in the building stock. Free-time residences are not included in the building stock. A free-time residence refers to a residential building intended for free-time use that is permanently constructed or erected on its site, or to a residential building that is used as a holiday or free-time dwelling. Rental holiday cottages of enterprises engaged in the accommodation industry, buildings of holiday villages and buildings on garden allotments are not classified as free-time residences. Statistics on buildings and free-time residences can be produced by all regional divisions based on municipalities or co-ordinates, as well as by postal code area. Statistics Finland receives most its data on the building stock from the population information system of the Population Register Centre, into which municipal building inspection authorities report data concerning buildings that are subject to building permits. The statistics constitute total data.
Free-time residence
A free-time residence refers to a recreational building constructed permanently on the site of its location or to a residential building that is used as a holiday dwelling. Holiday cottages serving business purposes, buildings in holiday villages and allotment garden cottages are not counted as free-time residences.
Free-time residences comprise all buildings the intended use of which on 31 December was as a free-time residential building or which on the said date were used as holiday residences.
Free-time residences are not included in the building stock. The floor area of free-time residences refers to the gross floor area of the whole building.
The data on free-time residences are obtained of the Population Information System, maintained by building project notices from municipal building supervision authorities.
Locality
An urban settlement is a cluster of dwellings with at least 200 inhabitants. The delimitation is based on the population information of the previous year. Urban settlements are defined and delimited in co-operation with the Finnish Environment Institute using geographic information methods that utilise the building and population data of Statistics Finland's 250 m x 250 m grid data. The population size of grids containing buildings and their neighbouring grids, as well as the number of buildings and their floor area, are reviewed in the definition. From the uniform clusters of dwellings generated in the defining stage, the ones with at least 200 inhabitants are selected.
Sub-area (of municipality)
Municipal sub-areas are formed of operationally functional wholes defined by the municipality itself, which are the basis of the municipality's regional planning and monitoring. Statistics Finland is responsible for digitising new sub-area boundaries and for maintaining name files. Municipalities have the opportunity to check their sub-area division once a year.
The division into sub-areas is a hierarchical three-level classification which has a 1-digit major area level, a 2-digit statistical area level and a 3-digit small area level. Sub-areas are numbered consecutively using these three hierarchical levels. The 6-digit sub-area code is bound to the 3-digit municipality code, so the sub-area code consists of a total of nine characters.