Talk:NUTS:UK

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[edit] C rather than 1?

I am confused by the following explanatory note: "The NUTS level 1 codes start with UKC rather than UK1 because...". I understand the reasoning itself, but there appear to be two questions here with only one answer:

  1. Why does the UK code use letters rather than numerals for this part of the code? [i.e. "starts at UKA" vs "starts at UK1"]
  2. Why do those letters start with 'C', not 'A'. [i.e. "starts at UKC" vs "starts at UKA"]

While writing this note, I decided that it would be best to come from less of a position of total ignorance, and on reading the parent NUTS article, I gathered that normally, the sequence would go "UK1, UK2, UK3 ... UK8, UK9, UKA, UKB, UKC ...". So, am I right in guessing that the reasoning was actually that the 11 codes from UK1 through to UKB had previously been assigned, and are now obsolete? Thus, UKC is the first unassigned code in the sequence, and thus not such a daft place to start the new codes. If so, perhaps this could be clarified in the article. Thanks. - IMSoP 20:21, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Your guess is correct: there used to be 11 NUTS level 1 areas in the UK (1-8 were the Standard Statistical Regions of England; while 9, A and B covered the three other parts of the UK). When the change was made, both old and new codes were used at every level for a short period, so they simply started the new codes from C; although some of the regions and countries had not changed at level 1, there were many more changes at levels 2 and 3. If this makes sense, feel free to edit the article, but try to keep it brief as it is little more than a historical footnote. I will give it a go.--Henrygb 00:34, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thank you - I think your explanation in the article covers it fine. There might be grammatical/minor tweaks, but as you say it's not worth spending much time or space on; it just seemed weird before if you didn't figure that UK1..UKB was a sequence of 11 codes, rather than my initial thought of UKA..UKB being 2, and UK1..9 floating off to nowhere :/ Like I say, consider it now fixed. - IMSoP 11:53, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)