I used spmat to create a spatial weighting matrix. I exported it in neighbor list form. The first row is the number of spatial units, then there is a row for each spatial unit and its list of neighbors. I want to combine some spatial units by altering the neighbor list. Ex: a city in Virginia that resides inside a county. The shape file has these as separate units. In the example below, unit 3 is the city, unit 5 is the surrounding county. The shape file has a total of 133 spatial units.


133
1 5 14 73
2 11 78 80 81
3 5
4 12 133
5 3 79 124


To fold 3 into 5, I eliminate the row 3 and then alter the list of neighbors for 5 as below, but my question involves the first row: should I change the 133 to 132?

133 (or 132?)
1 5 14 73
2 11 78 80 81
4 12 133
5 79 124

How is the first row of the weighting matrix, in this compact form, used by Stata when constructing spatially weighted variables, etc.? I need to combine a few other cities and counties. Thank you Jo