Geodemographics is a tool to summarize the characteristics of spatial units based on socio-economic data. It has been used over several decades to classify the characteristics of areas based on the similarities in such data, generally working by identifying groups or clusters of similar areas. It has seen use in the academic and private sectors but mostly became popular by 1980s for market research purposes – this rise in use drew attention to many issues that needed to be addressed in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to provide a geodemographic classification for the smallest scale administrative units in Ireland (Small Areas) based on the latest 2016 census population data. A further aim is to support reproducible research by following the methodology of an earlier study for the 2011 Census and to bring up the opportunity to compare the cluster results between the 2011 and 2016 census data. The comparison output provides useful insights for policy discussions in the Irish context. One of the other focal points of this study is to bring some clarity regarding some criticisms of geodemographics from an academic perspective. The paper also argues for the use of open data, open source software and supports open analysis.

地理人口统计是一种根据社会经济数据总结空间单位特征的工具。几十年来，它一直被用于根据此类数据的相似性对区域的特征进行分类，通常通过识别组或集群来进行工作。类似区域。它已在学术和私营部门中得到使用，但到1980年代，大多数用于市场研究目的而变得流行-这种使用的增加引起了人们对文献中需要解决的许多问题的关注。本文的目的是根据2016年最新的人口普查数据为爱尔兰（小地区）最小规模的行政单位提供地理人口统计分类。另一个目标是通过遵循2011年人口普查早期研究的方法来支持可重复的研究，并提供机会比较2011年和2016年人口普查数据之间的分类结果。比较输出为爱尔兰环境下的政策讨论提供了有用的见解。这项研究的其他重点之一是从学术角度澄清一些对地理人口学的批评。本文还主张使用开放数据，开放源代码软件并支持开放分析。