How to map household income by municipality in the Netherlands

Choose disposable or standardised household income

Disposable household income is income after the deductions specified by CBS. Standardised disposable income additionally adjusts for household size and composition, so households with different numbers of adults and children can be compared on a more consistent basis. These are different measures: a map of total disposable household income also reflects differences in household composition.

Choose the mean or the median deliberately. The median is the middle household when incomes are ordered; the mean is the arithmetic average and is more sensitive to very high incomes. Neither identifies every household’s circumstances. State the selected measure in the title, legend and caption, rather than using the general label “income”.

Publisher documentation: CBS — household income by household characteristics and region (2026 classification) · CBS — income distribution and standardised income

Match the data year to a boundary vintage

CBS publishes regional household-income tables with an explicit regional classification. A table labelled with the 2026 classification can contain income observations for earlier reference years. The classification year and the income reference year are separate facts; record both. Table 86380NED is one current entry point, not a permanent promise of which table will be newest.

Join municipalities using their official identifiers, not fuzzy name matches. Municipal mergers and boundary changes can otherwise put a historical observation into the wrong shape. Do not mix provinces, COROP regions and municipalities in one municipal comparison. If the exact boundary vintage is unavailable, say so and explain the mapping limitation.

• Open the CBS table and record its identifier, regional classification and income reference year.
• Select one household population and one mean or median income measure.
• Filter to municipalities and join official municipal codes to matching boundaries.
• Check the unit: values published in thousands of euros need that unit in the legend.
• Leave suppressed or missing values empty, retain provisional flags, and record the retrieval date.

Publisher documentation: CBS — household income by household characteristics and region (2026 classification)

Read the map without turning place into a personal label

A choropleth assigns one value to each municipality. It can reveal spatial patterns in the selected statistic, but large polygons are visually prominent even when they contain relatively few households. A colour class is not a measure of statistical significance, and a missing area must not be coloured as zero.

Keep the same class thresholds and units if you compare maps over time. A rank or an apparent colour change can otherwise be caused by the legend rather than a change in income. Regional income differences are descriptive evidence; explaining them requires additional data and a method that addresses possible confounding.

Inspect a real answer before asking for a new map

The linked Atlas example preserves an unedited answer to a question about average household income by Dutch municipality. It is a dated snapshot and may use a different income measure from the median standardised measure discussed here. Inspect its source and caveats before interpreting it.

Use the start question below to request your own measure explicitly. Atlas should identify the source and any coverage gap; an unavailable series is a reason to explain the limitation, not to silently substitute a different statistic.