Over the past year, thousands of changes have occurred in Europe’s administrative units, including municipal boundary and postcode reforms. Central and Eastern Europe have experienced an especially large number of changes, with reforms to multiple countries’ administrative and postcode structures. For example, Lithuania experienced 1,370 name and boundary changes in addition to 400 completely new postcode areas. Poland also reformed its postcode structure, adding 49 new postcodes and eliminating 77. Italy also underwent significant change: 14 large cities that previously had a single postcode per city have now been subdivided into multiple postcodes, resulting in comprehensive changes to regional names and boundaries. The new Europe Map Edition reflects all of these regional reforms and changes. The 2009 update also includes the newly introduced two- and four-digit postcode areas in Albania.
“An immense amount of research and effort was required to carry out this comprehensive update, because every country has a different organizational structure,” explains Klaus Dittmann, head of cartography at GfK GeoMarketing. “An up-to-date cartographic basis is essential for geomarketing, otherwise addresses of business locations and customers are not correctly associated with the maps. Consequently, GfK GeoMarketing updates its maps annually, Europe-wide. The new Europe Map Edition gives companies a reliable and up-to-date cartographic basis for all place-related planning activities in Europe. The maps also fit perfectly with the new GfK Purchasing Power Europe dataset.”
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