The nomenclature of types of equipment :
The services and equipment present in the 2020 BPE are grouped according to a nomenclature created ad hoc and updated each year to integrate changes related to sources, the insertion of new equipment, etc.
- The first level of the nomenclature contains 7 groups : personal services, businesses, education, health and social services, transport-travel, sports-leisure-culture and tourism.
- The second level contains 27 subgroups which are broken down into the third level into 188 types of equipment.

The constitution of equipment ranges :
The ranges bring together services and equipment which have similar implantation logics, in the sense that they are frequently present simultaneously in the municipalities.
For the 2020 Permanent database of facilities, equipment selected are divided into three ranges :

• the proximity range includes services that are present in the largest number of municipalities. It focuses on only 28 different services, but with numerous locations (1.95 million access points). It includes, for example, building craftsmen, bakeries, general practitioners, playgrounds ;

• the intermediate range includes, for example, banks, medical analysis laboratories or swimming pools open to the public ;

• the upper range brings together businesses such as fishmongers or hypermarkets, emergency medical services or cinemas. They are more rarely located and more often located in main cities than the services in the local range.

Otherwise, 59 types of equipment are not included in the ranges. They correspond to much rarer services or equipment or which are not primarily intended for permanent residents of the territories (example : hotels).