The main purpose of the ASGC is for collecting and disseminating geographically classified statistics. These are statistics with a ‘where’ dimension.
The ASGC provides a common framework of statistical geography and thereby enables the production of statistics which are comparable and can be spatially integrated.
In practice, statistical units such as households and businesses are first classified or assigned to a geographical area in one of the seven ASGC structures. Data collected from these statistical units are then compiled into ASGC defined geographic aggregations which, subject to confidentiality restrictions, are then available for publication.
The purposes of this publication are to outline the ASGC structures, describe the codes and names of geographical areas used and depict the statistical relationship between different types of geography used in the classification.