Flags beside values

What the letters after some numbers mean, and how they affect comparisons.

Statistical offices add a letter to a value when it needs a caution. This site keeps every flag in charts, tables and downloads. Select a letter on a page to come back to this explanation.

b: break in the series. The method or definition changed at this value, so it is not fully comparable with earlier years. d: definition differs. The country follows a definition that differs from the common one, so compare it with care. u: low reliability, usually because a survey sample was small.

e: estimated, and p: provisional, may be revised later. F or f: a projection or forecast, not a measured value. National estimate and UIS estimate: the figure was estimated by the country or by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics rather than measured directly.

C or c: confidential, and N: not for publication. The source withheld the value, so the table shows it as not available. n: not significant, the value is too uncertain to read on its own. A dash in a table means no value was published for that period.

Measures on this site

• Unemployment rate, ages 15 to 74 (Eurostat)
• Healthy life years at birth (Eurostat)
• Unemployment rate (ILO modelled estimates) (ILOSTAT)