{
  "schema_version": "bctl-destination-api@2.0.0",
  "snapshot_id": "bctl-destinations-47f0620be1025f8fa455",
  "edition": "editorial-destination-catalog",
  "catalog_version": "2026-10-29",
  "official_results_released": false,
  "scope_notice": "An editorial research destination catalog, not a best-city ranking or official Civometra quarterly result. Projected urban-footprint context is separate from municipal statistics, reviewed guides and V1 index evidence.",
  "rights_notice": "Source acknowledgement and the original publisher terms apply. This API grants no new rights over third-party measurements. BestCityToLive owns its original editorial selection, code and derivations, not the underlying JRC or U.S. Census Bureau observations.",
  "content_sha256": "15b8e4fa73dd901caf1d9413bc67bbb598025dd7f2315fe9cb6d134614c4cf35",
  "destination": {
    "id": "bctl:cologne",
    "slug": "cologne",
    "name": "Cologne",
    "aliases": [
      "Köln",
      "Koeln"
    ],
    "country": {
      "iso2": "DE",
      "name": "Germany"
    },
    "canonical_url": "https://bestcitytolive.com/city/cologne",
    "reference_point": {
      "longitude": 6.968745411992969,
      "latitude": 50.96591069147059,
      "role": "Publisher urban-footprint centroid transformed from ESRI:54009; contextual source point, not a separately reviewed city-center pin or municipal boundary."
    },
    "profile": {
      "kind": "evidence-profile",
      "guide_status": "guide-research-pending",
      "guide_reviewed_at": null,
      "notice": "A source-backed urban evidence profile. Local arrival, neighborhood, safety and service guidance has not been reviewed; no editorial guide date is assigned."
    },
    "source": {
      "publisher": "European Commission, Joint Research Centre",
      "dataset_name": "GHS Urban Centre Database 2025",
      "edition": "GHS-UCDB R2024A V1-2",
      "period": "2025",
      "geography_kind": "morphological-urban-centre",
      "source_crs": "ESRI:54009",
      "urban_centre_id": "1186",
      "native_name": "Cologne",
      "constituent_names": [
        "Cologne",
        "Leverkusen",
        "Bergisch Gladbach"
      ],
      "country_labels": {
        "GADM": "Germany",
        "UN_WPP": "Germany"
      },
      "region": "Europe",
      "url": "https://data.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset/1a338be6-7eaf-480c-9664-3a8ade88cbcd",
      "archive": {
        "url": "https://bestcitytolive.com/data/source-frames/ghsl-ucdb-general-v1_2-bc879d823205.zip",
        "sha256": "bc879d82320504f89df2041b7936221c8239cd808abe93980493aed062b4f3d6"
      },
      "geometry_wkb_sha256": "2a3f5e48be6cd8b38d2783dbb648f6816549805e41c6912aec6ff3f73a31dafc",
      "native_geometry_valid": true,
      "retrieved_at": "2026-10-26",
      "centroid": {
        "longitude": 6.968745411992969,
        "latitude": 50.96591069147059
      },
      "notice": "Morphological urban centres are not municipalities or commuting functional urban areas. These contextual records are excluded from Civometra scoring.",
      "citation": "Mari Rivero et al. (2024). GHS-UCDB R2024A – GHS Urban Centre Database 2025. European Commission, JRC. doi:10.2905/1a338be6-7eaf-480c-9664-3a8ade88cbcd. V1-2.",
      "licence_notice": "European Commission reuse notice: reuse authorised with source acknowledgement; underlying third-party terms remain applicable."
    },
    "context": {
      "population": {
        "value": 1156303.314,
        "unit": "persons",
        "period": "2025",
        "kind": "publisher-projection",
        "source_field": "GC_POP_TOT_2025",
        "source_literal": "1156303.314"
      },
      "area": {
        "value": 296,
        "unit": "km2",
        "period": "2025",
        "kind": "publisher-footprint-area",
        "source_field": "GC_UCA_KM2_2025",
        "source_literal": "296"
      },
      "density": {
        "value": 3906.430114864865,
        "unit": "persons/km2",
        "period": "2025",
        "kind": "derived",
        "calculation": "population_projected_2025 / area_km2",
        "numerator": 1156303.314,
        "denominator": 296
      },
      "notice": "Publisher 2025 population projection from GHS-POP R2023A and morphological urban-footprint area; density is their ratio. Not a current census count, municipal population or livability score. Shared footprints repeat one contextual measurement, not independent city estimates."
    },
    "shared_measurement": {
      "unit_id": "ghsl-ucdb-r2024a-v1-2:1186",
      "destination_ids": [],
      "notice": "Repeated bindings to the same physical source footprint are not independent urban estimates."
    },
    "housing_context": null,
    "ranking": {
      "status": "not-ranked",
      "official_results_released": false
    },
    "legacy": null,
    "links": {
      "json": "https://bestcitytolive.com/api/v2/destinations/cologne.json",
      "markdown": "https://bestcitytolive.com/api/v2/destinations/cologne.md",
      "country": "https://bestcitytolive.com/api/v2/countries/de.json"
    }
  }
}