LAU2 to NUTS Lookup: UK Administrative Geography Hierarchy for 2018

A lookup table mapping UK Local Administrative Units (LAU1 and LAU2) to Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) levels 1, 2, and 3 as of 1 January 2018. The dataset is provided by the Office for National Statistics and includes codes and names for each geography level. Northern Ireland data has been amended.

Use Cases

• Aggregating local-level data to higher NUTS regions based on the LAU2 to NUTS3 mapping.
• Joining datasets that use different UK administrative geography codes using the provided lookup fields.
• Analyzing regional statistics across the NUTS1, NUTS2, and NUTS3 hierarchy for the year 2018.
• Validating or standardizing UK geographic identifiers in data integration pipelines.

Strengths

• Provides a specific snapshot of the UK administrative geography hierarchy as of 1 January 2018.
• Includes amended data for Northern Ireland, suggesting an effort to correct known issues.
• Contains 10 distinct fields with defined names, types, and maximum character lengths (e.g., LAU217NM up to 56 chars).

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale joins.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data reflects a single point in time (January 2018); administrative boundaries may have changed since.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Likely an official administrative and statistical geography classification.

Time Range

Snapshot as of 1 January 2018.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:05.506435; freshness should be verified as the data itself is from 2018.

Geography

United Kingdom (including amended Northern Ireland data).