Census grid 2011Una evaluación metodológica

Laburpena

This paper presents an evaluation, from the user point of view, of the regular population grid, with 1 km2 resolution, that the Spanish National Statistical Institute (INE), has released as a product from the last Population and Dwellings Census 2011. This way of disseminating population data is novel, and has a lot of analytical potential uses, since population is no longer linked to administrative divisions. For the first time this information about the population distribution has been generated using a bottom-up approach, this is, by geo-referencing the population at its place of residence. The availability of another grid at the same spatial resolution, but generated using a top-down approach, this is by spatial disaggregation methods from administrative population data and other auxiliary land cover information, allow us to explore the benefits associated to geo-referencing the population in the context of the methodological changes introduced by the Population and Dwellings Census 2011. In parallel, we are able to evaluate the goodness of the census grid.