A method for generating a polar code cN of length N and dimension K, on the basis of a generator matrix GN of size N×N, is provided. The method includes generating a distance spectrum vector dTp=(dTp(1), . . . , dTp(p)) of size p of the kernel Tp, wherein dTp(h), h=1, . . . , p, corresponds to a maximum value among all possible minimum distances of all possible polar codes of size p and dimension h generated on the basis of the kernel Tp. The method also includes generating a distance spectrum vector dGN of size N of the generator matrix GN on the basis of the distance spectrum vector dTp, determining the set of K information bit indices I on the basis of the distance spectrum vector dGN, and generating the polar code cN on the basis of the set of K information bit indices I.