Cities in Europe and Central Asia Database 1992 - 2012

v01, edited dataset for public distribution

The Cities in ECA database also includes several variables which result from the intersection of other globally-available spatial data and the location of cities, or which further qualify cities' characteristics - based on their institutional or economic structure-using official data. Below is a description of some of these variables:

• Location fundamentals refer to a series of spatially-concentrated characteristics, which can support the concentration of population and economic activities. These could include natural advantages supporting the development of agricultural activities or spatial characteristics supporting the development of commercial activities-such as having access to navigable waterways. The database includes seven location fundamentals variables: land vegetation, average January temperature, total annual precipitation, percentage forest cover, distance to nearest coast, distance to nearest international border, and distance to closest border.
• Market potential intends to measure the proximity of a city to nearby (national) markets as a city's market potential is determined by the network of cities to which it has access.
• Monotowns are cities whose economies are dominated by one or a few tightly inter-connected industries. The Cities in ECA database includes a dummy variable identifying 224 monotowns in Russia, the only country for which this information was readily available.
• Multi-city agglomeration or agglomerations correspond to cities whose urban footprint extends beyond a single administrative entity. Agglomerations are identified by intersecting the cities' data with the urban footprints produced by the NTL dataset. There are a total of 352 agglomerations composed of 2,358 cities in the 17 countries studied.