Big or small, cities need reliable and comparable information for urban planning and for their safe, sustainable and prosperous development. Following a pilot project for the collection of comparable statistics and indicators for European cities the first full-scale European Urban Audit took place in 2003, for the then 15 countries of the European Union. In 2004 the project was extended to the 10 new Member States plus Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. Under Eurostat coordination, the work of the Urban Audit involves all national statistical offices as well as some of the cities themselves. The second full-scale Urban Audit took place between 2006 and 2007, and involved 321 European cities and their Larger Urban Zones (LUZ) in the 27 countries of the European Union, along with 36 additional cities in Norway, Switzerland and Turkey.
During the Urban Audit 2009 data collection 329 variables are collected for 323 European Union cities and 47 cities in Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and Croatia. About 40 variables are available for the period 2005 – 2009. The subject of the Urban Audit survey are the following 8 cities in Bulgaria: Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Ruse, Pleven, Vidin and Stara Zagora. The Larger Urban Zones of these cities are composed of 31 municipalities, which give over 15 % of its labour force to the corresponding city.
