Article 2 — Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply: (1) citizenship means the particular legal bond between a person and a State, acquired by birth or naturalisation, whether by declaration, choice, marriage, adoption or other means, in accordance with national law; (2) usual residence means the place where a person normally spends the daily period of rest, regardless of temporary absences for purposes of recreation, holidays, visits to friends and relatives, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage, provided that that person: (a) has lived at that place for most of the time during the 12 months prior to and including the reference date; or (b) arrived at that place during the 12 months prior to and including the reference date and where there is an intention or expectation that that person stays there most of the time for at least 12 months from the date of arrival; (3) signs of life means information indicative of the actual presence and usual residence of a person on the relevant territory which can be obtained from any appropriate source or combination thereof, including digital traces that relate to the person concerned; (4) international migration means the event by which a person establishes his or her usual residence in the territory of a Member State or in a third country, having previously been usually resident in another Member State or third country; (5) immigrant means a person who has undergone international migration during the reference period to establish that person’s new usual residence in the territory of the reporting Member State; (6) emigrant means a person who has undergone international migration during the reference period to establish that person’s new usual residence outside the territory of the reporting Member State, having previously been usually resident in the territory of the reporting Member State; (7) internal migration means the event by which a person changes his or her place of usual residence within the territory of the reporting Member State; (8) hard-to-reach population groups means groups of persons for whom a real or perceived barrier exists for full and representative inclusion or identification in the collection of statistical data, due to either a lack of coverage of such groups, or a lack of specific characteristics to identify them; (9) living quarters means a temporary or permanent structure, shelter or lodging place at which one or more persons reside, irrespective of whether it is designed or intended for human habitation; (10) separate premises means premises surrounded by walls and covered by a roof or ceiling in such a way that one or more persons can reside there independently from other persons; (11) independent premises means premises with direct access from a street, stairway, passage, corridor or land; (12) conventional dwelling means structurally separate premises and independent premises in a fixed location, which are designed for permanent human habitation and which are, on the reference date, used as a usual residence, unoccupied or used as a secondary or seasonal residence; (13) building intended for habitation means a permanent structure comprised of one or more conventional dwellings or which is intended for institutional or collective housing; (14) household means a group of two or more persons who share living quarters, or one person who does not form part of any other household; (15) institution means collective living quarters for the purpose of providing, to a group of persons, long-term housing and services necessary for their daily life; (16) family means a group of two or more persons who live most of the time in the same household and who are related through parenthood or through marriage, a registered partnership or a consensual union; (17) administrative records means data generated by a non-statistical source, which is usually a register held by a public body, the main aim of which is not the provision of statistics; (18) domain means one or more data sets that cover particular topics; (19) topic means the content of the information to be collected about the statistical units, with each topic covering one or more detailed topics; (20) detailed topic means the detailed content of the information to be collected about the statistical units related to a topic, with each detailed topic covering one or more variables; (21) data set means one or more variables, organised in a structured form; (22) population and housing census means the detailed decennial data sets and metadata to be provided under this Regulation; (23) statistical unit means one member of a universe of entities, namely persons, objects or events, about which data are collected and statistics are compiled; (24) variable means a characteristic of a statistical unit that can assume more than one set of values; (25) breakdown means a predefined, discrete, exhaustive and mutually exclusive set of values which can be assigned to a variable characterising statistical units; (26) national level means a level relating to the territory of a Member State; (27) regional level or NUTS 3 means NUTS level 3 as set out in Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003; (28) local level or LAU means local administrative unit level as set out in Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003; (29) grid level means statistical grid maintained and published pursuant to Article 4a of Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003; (30) frame means any list, material or device that delimits and identifies the elements of the target population and that, depending on its use, allows access to, or provides additional characteristics of, the elements; (31) reference date means the point in time to which statistics refer; (32) reference period means the time interval to which statistics on events refer; (33) reference time means either a reference date or a reference period, depending whether the statistics are on events or on other statistical units; (34) metadata means information that is needed to use and interpret the statistics and that describes data sets in a structured way; (35) pre-checked data sets means data sets verified by the Member States on the basis of agreed common validation rules.