Official geographic code 

COG

The official geographical code (COG) is the classification of French administrative units, as well as that of countries and foreign territories. The COG brings together odes and names of municipalities, , departments, regions, territorial authorities with special status, overseas collectivities and their main divisions, and countries and foreign territories as of January 1st of each year The Information on the updates to be made each year always relies on a regulatory text (decree, prefectoral decree, etc.) or from the Official Journal of the French Republic (JO). The Sirene department in charge of public sector at Insee sends the prefectural decrees it receives for mergers of municipalities, reinstatements, deletions, as well as the minutes of deliberations of the municipal councils it receives relating to the creation of delegated municipalities, deletions of delegated or associated municipalities. The INSEE regional offices also report the information they receive (regulatory texts, etc.). All geographical changes concerning the COG are validated at the beginning of each year jointly with the General Directorate of Local Authorities (DGCL) and the Office of Organization and Missions of Territorial Administration (Bomat) of the Ministry of the Interior. They are then recorded in the REFIGEO geographic reference system, the computerized database of INSEE's geographic nomenclatures. It can be considered that the National Directory for the Identification of Individuals (RNIPP), the Identification System for the Directory of Companies and their Establishments (SIRENE) and the COG constitute three essential infrastructures of the administrative management of the French Republic, which are closely linked and managed by INSEE. These three files constitute reference data according to the law n° 2016-1321 of October 7, 2016 for a digital Republic. An important part of the statistical work that includes a geographical dimension refers to the nomenclature of the COG (for example, in annual census surveys: the numbers of region, department, district, canton and municipality, given in the decrees authenticating the results of population censuses, more precisely in the tables of figures annexed to them, are taken from the COG).

The first edition of the COG dates back to 1943 and was published by the National Statistics Service (SNS) of the Ministry of National Economy and Finance. In 1946, the SNS was replaced by INSEE, one of whose attributions was to "Achieve the unification of statistical classification and codes" (decree n°46-1432 of June 14, 1946). From then on, INSEE drew up each year a corrigendum to the COG summarizing all the changes that had taken place during the previous year. The second edition of the COG was published in 1954. Subsequent editions appeared in 1961, 1966, 1968, 1971, 1975, 1982, 1985, 1990, 1994 and 1999. Since 1999, the COG has been updated and published annually on insee's website in February or March.

Administrative data