How the standout figures are picked
A commune page can show the figures where it stands furthest from others, with the communes it borders and 2014 beside each one. This is how they’re picked and where every number comes from. No language model writes any of it.
What stands out
A commune of 5,000 people or more stands out when it’s in the top or bottom 1% of those communes on a measure. A unit stands out when its figure moved since 2014 by 3 standard deviations or more from the average change across its level, for a level of 10 units or more and a measure the 2014 census asked the same way. A commune or a province also stands out when its gap from its province’s or région’s figure is 3 standard deviations or more from the average gap under that parent, where the parent holds 8 units or more. Changes and gaps count only for communes of 2,000 people or more, where a few households can’t swing a share on their own.
Every measure is a rate, a share or an average, since a raw count would pick out a big place for being big. A commune matched to 2014 through the crosswalk has no change to compare, since its 2014 figure covers other ground. The 300 figures that stand out most are kept, at most 3 for any one place. Only a commune’s are published, since a commune page is where they show.
What’s left out
A possible error in the data is left out. The languages people speak, read and write, education and illiteracy move slowly. When one of them swings in a place whose population moved by less than 10%, and no neighbour moved the same way by at least half as much, the figure may be an error in the data. So may every figure in a record that can’t be right, such as more than 8 people per room or a household of more than 15.
So is a commune with any figure the two censuses disagree on. For a local language, that’s a share that moved more than 30 points between 2014 and 2024, either way. For running water, electricity, the public sewer, a toilet and a kitchen, it’s a share that fell more than 30 points. Either way, the move has to be larger than the population itself changed, in percent. Both figures are HCP’s, as published. The two censuses disagree, so the commune isn’t set against a neighbour, and it has no section here.
The shares of men and women are left out too, since several southern communes count special populations. Getting to work by tram, train, bus, taxi or transport laid on by an employer is left out, since those services only some places have. Where a list of private terms is set up, a figure whose line uses one is held back.
An economy or housing figure is left out when the commune has fewer than 100 businesses, or fewer than 100 urban dwellings. A handful of them can swing a share.
A commune with fewer than 300 households, or more than 8 people to a household on average, is left out of the standout figures and of every comparison between communes: next door, the closest match, the profile wheel and the lines on what moved and what’s rare. Its own figures stay on its page. A few communes in the south count thousands of people in a few dozen households, the rest being people the census doesn’t count in households, so a share of households there is a handful of families.
What’s beside each figure
The commune’s other figures. A commune’s figures that stand out are shown together, and each one’s record in the API lists the others.
The communes it borders. Two communes border each other when their OpenStreetMap boundaries share a segment. Beside each figure is the median of the same figure across those communes, and the one furthest from this commune’s own. A neighbour of fewer than 2,000 people is left out, and so is one with any figure the two censuses disagree on. For a change since 2014, their change is compared, and a neighbour matched to 2014 through the crosswalk is left out.
2014 and Morocco. Where the 2014 census asked the figure the same way, the page gives the commune’s 2014 figure and how Morocco’s moved, in whole points for a share. It doesn’t for a commune matched through the crosswalk.
An estimate from a sample. In a commune of 2,000 households or more, the long questionnaire went to a sample of households. A census figure there carries a note that it’s an estimate, linking to how the census was read.
Communes of the same kind. A census figure is also set against communes of the same type, urban or rural, and the same size: under 5,000 people, 5,000 to 20,000, or over 20,000. If it’s in the top 1%, 5% or 10% of a group of at least 20 communes, a line says so. Economy and housing figures aren’t compared this way.