A periphery, (''Fr: couronne'') is an INSEE (French demographic statistics institution) statistical area
/ref> designating a commuter belt around an

urban unit In France, an urban unit (''fr: "unité urbaine"'') is a statistical area defined by INSEE, the French national statistics office, for the measurement of contiguously built-up areas. According to the INSEE definition , an "unité urbaine" is a ...

(''Fr: unité urbaine''). Together these complete the INSEE

urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, ...

statistical area. Based on France's '' commune'' system (interlocking administrative subdivisions often comparable to

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

es,

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares ...

s or

cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

), a commune is considered part of a couronne when # it is not densely constructed enough or is too isolated to be part of any '' unité urbaine'' (or "'' pôle urbain''" if it is the core of the agglomeration), and # at least 40% of its population commutes to workplaces in a '' unité urbaine'' or '' pôle urbain'', or to another commune connected to a '' unité urbaine'' through the same criteria.

References

Demographics of France Subdivisions of France INSEE concepts {{geo-term-stub