Airport location in European airport regions: Five typologies based on the regional road network and land use data

Abstract

Describing the location of an airport within a region, the vocabulary of urban studies is often dominated by ill-defined terms such as urban fringe, centre, suburb, corridors, etc. The dataset presented by this manuscript aims to provide a basis to describe and compare the location of 76 major European airports within their respective urban regions. The dataset consists of seven types of data: Betweenness centrality of major roads at 45 km radius of each airport region, population density, distribution of urbanized areas, location of agricultural lands, location of the natural area, and distribution of leisure and industrial sites. Ultimately, employing hierarchical clustering, five typologies of the European airport regions, given the regional location of airport, are identified: (1) Urban airports; (2) Urban periphery airports; (3) Agricultural-area airports; (4) Natural-area airports; (5) Remote airports. Keywords: Airport, Airport region, Betweenness centrality, land use, Europe