Regional market definition

@@ -25,9 +25,9 @@ The Woodfine location intelligence map organises co-location clusters into two s

The pipeline resolves each co-location cluster to an incorporated municipal or CSD polygon via a point-in-polygon assignment against TIGER 2023 places for the US, GISCO LAU 2021 plus GADM GBR for the EU and UK, with rural co-locations resolving to their containing municipality. A settlement becomes a Regional Market object the moment **one** co-location falls inside its polygon.

Under this permissive rule, the count of Regional Market objects approximates the count of distinct settlements that contain any co-location at all. At the 2026-05-22 build, the pipeline produced approximately **3,011 settlements** (North America and EU/UK) with co-location presence. Of those, **2,986** were published in the gateway's `regional-markets.json` and **2,942** carried the high-confidence geocoding flag.
Under this permissive rule, the count of Regional Market objects approximates the count of distinct settlements that contain any co-location at all. At the 2026-05-22 build, the pipeline produced approximately **3,011 settlements** (North America and EU/UK) with co-location presence. Of those, **2,986** were published in the live dataset and **2,942** carried the high-confidence geocoding flag.

Coverage has grown substantially since that build. As of the most recent full processing run (2026-08-06), the live `regional-markets.json` carries **12,689** Regional Market objects across **24 countries**. Of those, **12,578** — about 99% — carry the high-confidence flag. The permissive rule itself is unchanged; the growth reflects dataset expansion, not a floor change.
Coverage has grown substantially since that build. As of the most recent full processing run (2026-08-06), the live dataset carries **12,689** Regional Market objects across **24 countries**. Of those, **12,578** — about 99% — carry the high-confidence flag. The permissive rule itself is unchanged; the growth reflects dataset expansion, not a floor change.

That is a coverage statistic. It records how widely the tracked anchor chains are observed. It does not identify where retail demand actually concentrates. A floor of one co-location admits every town with a single qualifying co-location on exactly the same terms as a metropolitan area with dozens.

@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ Two failure modes follow from conflating coverage with market:

**The count reads as an artefact of the floor, not the geography.** A reviewer can move the count up or down simply by arguing the floor, which is the classic sign that the threshold — not the data — is doing the work. This is the same failure class as the DBSCAN parameter sensitivity documented in [[co-location-tiering-scoring|the co-location tiering and scoring methodology]], where parameter sweeps move the North American cluster count across a wide range without any change to the underlying retailer data.

`mkt_conf` does not resolve this. It is geocoding precision — specifically the quality of the boundary assignment — not market quality. It must not be presented as a ranking or a quality signal.
The geocoding-confidence field does not resolve this. It is geocoding precision — specifically the quality of the boundary assignment — not market quality. It must not be presented as a ranking or a quality signal.

## Composition floors: anchor composition, not count

@@ -61,11 +61,11 @@ An alternative, and analytically stronger, floor is a **demand threshold**. Unde

Whichever floor is chosen, **the resulting Regional Market count must be re-derived and published alongside the floor and the rule that produced it**. The count is not meaningful without both printed next to it.

If no floor is adopted, the minimum acceptable change is renaming. That means dropping "Regional Market" for the permissive object and calling it "settlements with co-location presence" on the map face, in the Method modal, and in this TOPIC. The term "market" carries an implied claim of concentrated demand that the one-co-location rule does not support on its own. Per the correction above, though, a single co-location *can* support that claim if its tier is high enough.
If no floor is adopted, the minimum acceptable change is renaming. That means dropping "Regional Market" for the permissive object and calling it "settlements with co-location presence" on the map face, in the platform's documentation, and in this TOPIC. The term "market" carries an implied claim of concentrated demand that the one-co-location rule does not support on its own. Per the correction above, though, a single co-location *can* support that claim if its tier is high enough.

## The Top-400 co-locations — a qualifying set, not a ranking

The Top-400 is a list of co-locations, not Regional Markets, produced per region. North America is one region; Europe (UK, Nordics, Continental) is another; the list is cut at 400 per region. Each row carries a Regional Market column for context. It is the spine of the BentoBox detail view, presented in a fixed order that is not an asserted rank.
The Top-400 is a list of co-locations, not Regional Markets, produced per region. North America is one region; Europe (UK, Nordics, Continental) is another; the list is cut at 400 per region. Each row carries a Regional Market column for context. It is the spine of the platform's detail view, presented in a fixed order that is not an asserted rank.

**No rank or score is published against any co-location in the Top-400.** Entry is decided by anchor composition, not by a numeric score: a co-location qualifies when it clears one of three composition gates — a hypermarket anchor with at least two of {hardware, price club, lifestyle, electronics, sport}; a hypermarket-plus-hardware anchor pair across at least two distinct clusters; or that same hypermarket-plus-hardware condition applied to a geographically isolated co-location. A composite score exists internally to support selection but is never surfaced to a reader. See [[about-regional-markets-system|Regional Markets Intelligence System]] for the full qualification method.

@@ -92,10 +92,10 @@ Every count below is reported with the rule that produced it. Figures are as of 
| Top-400 co-locations (per region) | Composition gates (internal score, not published) | 400 NA + 400 EU | Qualifying candidate sites, not a ranked list; adopted per the recommendation above |
| NA co-locations (DBSCAN) | eps/minPts/IoU — sensitive | 226–476 across parameter sweep | Cluster count (descriptive) |

Two honesty notes belong in the Method modal alongside this table:
Two honesty notes belong in the platform's documentation alongside this table:

- The Regional Market count under a tier-based floor will differ from the raw settlement count in both directions — it drops many weak, low-tier settlements but keeps every single-cluster T1 settlement a naive count floor would have excluded. Neither direction is a regression; a tier-based count is simply a different, more defensible measurement than either the raw coverage count or a count-based floor.
- `mkt_conf` is geocoding precision, not market quality, and is not a ranking variable.
- The geocoding-confidence field is geocoding precision, not market quality, and is not a ranking variable.

## See also

@@ -103,5 +103,3 @@ Two honesty notes belong in the Method modal alongside this table:
- [[co-location-tiering-scoring]] — how tiers and the planned strength score are computed for each co-location inside a Regional Market
- [[trade-area-methodology]] — how the trade area for each co-location is defined
- [[spend-population-provenance]] — the estimation chain for population and spend figures attributed to each co-location

`app-orchestration-gis`, the platform's GIS orchestration application, is the layer that resolves co-locations to Regional Markets.