The Department of Statistics is a department of the Barcelona Municipal Council specialising in the theory and practice of data collection and the analysis and presentation necessary to convert such data into a useful resource for resolving questions that come up in decision-making processes. We would also like to add that we have been keeping statistics for nearly a century – the only municipal council that has been doing so for so long. The first Yearbook of the City of Barcelona was published in 1902.

Statistical information is intended to provide an overall, synthesised vision of phenomena, or the relationship between a specific fact and a phenomenon. From the point of view of Municipal Statistics, these phenomena are nothing more than the knowledge of an external reality: the city as a system. In this light, the basic aim is to gain knowledge of a reality of the city – socio-economic, demographic, urban development, etc. – by means of obtaining dependable, useful and up-to-date statistical data, along with its subsequent diffusion. 

Moreover, Municipal Statistics is a tool for gaining a broader knowledge of the city, at the service of the citizen and other entities, whether social, economic, cultural or otherwise. 

Among  the functions of the Department of Statistics are:  the gathering and processing of basic municipal statistics, including demographic, economic, building and electoral; preparation of the Statistical Yearbook of the city of Barcelona; updating, management and use of the Municipal Council statistical database; diffusion of statistical information to citizens through the Centre for Statistical Documentation; and drawing up statistical proposals for the Statistical Plan for Catalonia. 

This participation in the Statistical Plan for Catalonia has earned its activity the category of official statistics, that is to say that the Parliament of Catalonia considers it to be of public interest. In 1992 the Barcelona Municipal Council signed a joint agreement with the Catalan Institute of Statistics for participation in their annual programmes. Its history in the production and diffusion of statistics on the city has led to the incorporation in the annual programmes of eleven dossiers of statistical activities carried out by the Department of Statistics of the Barcelona Municipal Council, considered of public interest by the Catalan Institute of Statistics.