The geographical reference for the evolving BPE databases for 2020-2025 and 2015-2025 is the Official Geographic Code (COG) of the municipalities active on January 1, 2025, both for 2025 data and for those from 2020 and 2015.

The data is produced throughout France.

In municipalities divided into arrondissements (Paris, Lyon and Marseille), the data is produced at the level of the arrondissement. The district is then considered as a commune.

For various reasons, two BPE data sets from different years are not directly comparable. It is strongly discouraged to use the BPE to analyze trends in the number of facilities, their density, or their accessibility within a given area. Indeed, it is particularly complex to assess in comparisons over time what is a change in nomenclature, a change in source, a change in quality of the source or, finally, a real evolution in the services and facilities accessible in the field.

However, in order to meet the needs of the users of the BPE, assessments are carried out each year to determine the conditions under which it is possible to use the BPE in evolution.

Each year, the publication of BPE in evolution:

• covers two years separated by an interval of 5 or 10 years;
• concerns a selected number of types of facilities considered, over the period concerned, to be the most stable from the point of view of their definition, layout, construction, etc. ;
• excludes types of facilities related to National Education (in the field of education, only facilities related to agricultural education is disseminated in evolution);
• is carried out in the geography of the most recent year.

Thus, the BPE in evolution is in geography 2025.

The BPE in evolution 2020-2025 covers 151 types of facilities.

The BPE in evolution 2015-2025 covers 109 types of facilities.

The BPE in evolution contains a subset of equipment types from the BPE as at 1 January 2025. Some of these types of facilities are accompanied by usage reservations. These may be due to various factors:

• the effective multiplication of practice addresses for healthcare professionals which have an impact on developments (specialist in cardiology, radiodiagnostics, etc.);
• the declaration of grouped addresses for certain activities carried out in separate geographical locations within a département (e.g. banks);
• atypical trends in certain départements compared with the national trend (for example, specialists in ophthalmology).

For any analysis of trends, counts should be avoided at the finest geographical levels. Instead, a presence/absence indicator should be published for the area in question. A good knowledge of the terrain is necessary before any analysis and interpretation.