Woonduur

Woonduur is a Dutch term that translates literally to “duration of residence” or “length of dwelling.” It refers to the amount of time a person has lived at a particular address or within a defined geographic area. In administrative and statistical contexts, woonduur is used as a measure of residential longevity and can be calculated for an address, municipality, region, or country.

In practice, woonduur appears in a variety of contexts. In immigration and nationality procedures, the duration of residence may be one of the criteria considered by authorities when assessing eligibility for long-term or permanent residency or naturalization. In housing policy and urban planning, some programs and analyses take woonduur into account to understand eligibility for services, priority in housing allocation, or neighbourhood stability. In demographic research and statistics, woonduur helps describe residential mobility, social ties to a place, and population dynamics. The exact role of woonduur and the rules defining it differ by jurisdiction and program.

Measurement and data for woonduur typically come from official address registrations, migration records, or population surveys. Because different agencies may define and compute it differently, its precise meaning is not universal across institutions. In research and public reporting, woonduur serves as a straightforward indicator of how long people have been connected to a place, reflecting patterns of settlement, mobility, and community ties.