What question did this study set out to answer?

This research aims to evaluate how different building block designs influence the statistical characteristics of census output areas generated by AZTool in South Africa.

May 25, 2026Open Access

Effects of different building blocks designs on the statistical characteristics of automated zone-design tool output areas

Key Points

This research aims to evaluate how different building block designs influence the statistical characteristics of census output areas generated by AZTool in South Africa.
Utilized spatial layers from 2001 census data, including Enumeration Areas (EAs), Small Area Layers (SALs), and SubPlaces as building blocks.
Employed the Automated Zone-design Tool (AZTool) for generating output areas in rural and urban settings.
Conducted one way-Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to assess statistical significance of the results.
Output areas from smaller building blocks (EAs and SALs) exhibited greater homogeneity compared to those from larger blocks (SubPlaces).
Smaller area-generated output areas showed narrower population distributions and more compact shapes.
The AZTool optimized output areas from smaller blocks clearly distinguished scale effects more effectively than those from larger blocks.

Abstract

Prior to any census, the country usually gets demarcated into small geographic units called census enumeration areas, districts or blocks. In most countries, these small geographic units are also used for census dissemination. In cases where they are not used for census release, they are normally used as building blocks for developing output areas or they are aggregated to higher spatial levels in an effort to preserve privacy or confidentiality. Buildings blocks are therefore, of significant importance towards results that could be drawn from either aggregated higher level or from output areas developed using these small geographic areas. This paper aimed at evaluating the effects of different building blocks on the statistical characteristics of output areas generated using the Automated Zone-design Tool (AZTool) computer program. Different spatial layers (such as Enumeration Areas (EAs), Small Area Layers (SALs) and SubPlaces) from the 2001 census data were used as building blocks for the generation of census output areas with AZTool program in both rural and urban areas of South Africa. One way-Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was also performed to determine statistical significance of the AZTool results. Results showed that the AZTool output areas generated from smaller areas (EAs and SALs) tend to be more homogeneous than the ones generated from larger areas (SubPlaces) when using dwelling type and geotype as homogeneity variables. The output areas from smaller areas also had narrower population distribution and more compact shapes than their counter-parts. In addition, the AZTool optimised output areas from the smaller areas allowed a clear distinction of the scale effects than output areas from larger areas. It was concluded that indeed different building blocks did have an impact on the statistical qualities of the AZTool optimised output areas in both rural and urban settings in South Africa.

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