Largest urban areas of the European Union
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This is a list of all the urban areas of the European Union which have more than 750,000 inhabitants in 2005.
This list is an attempt to present a consistent list of population figures for EU cities. Numbers here have been compiled using a uniform definition and the limits of urban areas have been harmonized as of 2000, so they can be compared with each other. The list was designed in 2000, and figures for 2005 that are presented here have been calculated using the 1990-2000 population growth rate for each city. It is possible that a few urban areas may have experienced a very different growth pattern since 2000, in which case the figures given here would differ slightly from reality, but this should play only at the margin.
Contents
Important notes
- This is a list of urban areas, this is not a list of metropolitan areas. Urban areas are contiguous built-up areas where houses are not more than 200 metres apart (discounting rivers, parks, roads, industrial fields, etc.). A metropolitan area is an urban area plus the satellite cities around the urban area and the agricultural land in between. See Largest European metropolitan areas.
- The majority of European statistical offices do not have a definition for metropolitan areas. They only define urban areas; therefore, it is not possible to give figures for metropolitan areas. Figures for European metropolitan areas that can be found online, such as London (13 million inhabitants), Randstad (7 million), etc., are only rough estimates, and should be taken with a pinch of salt. France is one of the few countries in Europe that actually defines metropolitan areas, and calculates their population. See aire urbaine for a definition and a list of French metropolitan areas.
- Figures here are more accurate than the rough estimates of European metropolitan areas usually found online. However, figures here cannot be compared with commonly tabulated figures of American metropolitan areas.
- Please do not be surprised if you are used to higher figures for the cities listed below. London is frequently listed with 13 million inhabitants, Stuttgart is frequently listed with 2.2 million inhabitants, Munich with 2 million or more, etc. This is because figures here are only for urban areas, which are smaller than metropolitan areas. Urban areas can be computed by private people or institutions using maps and looking where the built-up area stops. Metropolitan areas, which imply much more complicated definitions (such as the proportion of people in satellite cities working in the core of the metropolitan area), can be accurately computed only by statistical offices, after they have chosen a definition for metropolitan areas, but the majority of European statistical offices do not define or compute metropolitan areas.
- This isn't a definitive list of largest cities (there can be no such thing), but just one way of looking at things. If one city listed with an urban area population of 1 million has many substantial towns in close proximity, while another is set in a sparsely inhabited region, it may well be the case that the first city is more important in many fields of activity. But nonetheless, they will be ranked at the same level in this list.
Urban areas of the European Union above 750,000 inhabitants
| Rank | Urban Area | Population (2005 est.) | Change p.a. (1990s avg.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1
| Paris, France | 10 136 000 | 0.21% |
| 2
| London, United Kingdom | 8 505 000 | 0.68% |
| 3
| Ruhr area-Essen-Dortmund-Duisburg, Germany | 5 214 000 | – 0.14% |
| 4
| Madrid, Spain | 5 078 000 | 0.32% |
| 5
| Milan, Italy | 4 282 280 | 0.00% |
| 6
| Barcelona, Spain | 4 043 000 | – 0.35% |
| 7
| Berlin, Germany | 3 764 000 | 0.12% |
| 8
| Rotterdam-The Hague, Netherlands | 3 345 000 | 0.50% |
| 9
| Athens, Greece | 3 247 000 | 0.37% |
| 10
| Naples, Italy | 2 905 000 | 0.00% |
| 11
| Rome, Italy | 2 628 000 | – 0.85% |
| 12
| Katowice-Upper Silesia, Poland | 2 481 000 | – 0.95% |
| 13
| Cologne-Bonn, Germany | 2 475 000 | 0.63% |
| 14
| South Ruhr-Düsseldorf-Wuppertal, Germany | 2 382 000 | 0.14% |
| 15
| Lisbon, Portugal | 2 377 000 | 0.27% |
| 16
| Hamburg, Germany | 2 293 000 | 0.54% |
| 17
| Birmingham-Wolverhampton (West Midlands), United Kingdom | 2 275 000 | – 0.10% |
| 18
| Greater Manchester, United Kingdom | 2 237 000 | – 0.09% |
| 19
| Budapest, Hungary | 2 228 000 | – 0.60% |
| 20
| Warsaw, Poland | 2 069 000 | 0.01% |
| 21
| Brussels, Belgium | 1 975 000 | 0.52% |
| 22
| Vienna, Austria | 1 893 000 | 0.25% |
| 23
| Munich, Germany | 1 656 000 | 0.20% |
| 24
| Leeds-Bradford (Leeds-Bradford) (West Yorkshire), United Kingdom | 1 520 000 | 0.35% |
| 25
| Frankfurt, Germany | 1 489 000 | 0.29% |
| 26
| Lyon, France | 1 465 000 | 0.46% |
| 27
| Copenhagen, Denmark | 1 417 000 | 0.39% |
| 28
| Marseille, France | 1 374 000 | 0.29% |
| 29
| Lille-Kortrijk, France & Belgium | 0.19% | |
| 30
| Valencia, Spain | 1 362 000 | 0.10% |
| 31
| Porto, Portugal | 1 303 000 | 0.71% |
| 32
| Stockholm, Sweden | 1 273 000 | 1.08% |
| 33
| Stuttgart, Germany | 1 239 000 | 0.30% |
| 34
| Amsterdam, Netherlands | 1 196 000 | 0.64% |
| 35
| Bielefeld, Germany | 1 184 000 | 0.65% |
| 36
| Turin, Italy | 1 182 000 | – 0.95% |
| 37
| Prague, Czech Republic | 1 161 000 | – 0.36% |
| 38
| Glasgow, United Kingdom | 1 156 000 | – 0.26% |
| 39
| Liverpool-Birkenhead (Merseyside), United Kingdom | 1 119 000 | – 0.34% |
| 40
| Antwerp, Belgium | 1 094 000 | 0.27% |
| 41
| Seville, Spain | 1 072 000 | 0.56% |
| 42
| Helsinki, Finland | 1 071 000 | 1.46% |
| 43
| Newcastle-Sunderland (Tyne and Wear), United Kingdom | 1 056 000 | – 0.16% |
| 44
| Dublin, Republic of Ireland | 1 032 000 | 0.89% |
| 45
| Łódź, Poland | 972 000 | – 0.59% |
| 46
| Bilbao, Spain | 919 000 | – 0.35% |
| 47
| Nice, France | 912 000 | 0.42% |
| 48
| Mannheim, Germany | 907 000 | 0.29% |
| 49
| Riga, Latvia | 893 000 | – 1.36% |
| 50
| Trójmiasto (Tricity), Poland | 0.05% | |
| 51
| Florence, Italy | 874 000 | – 0.54% |
| 52
| Malaga, Spain | 865 000 | |
| 53
| Toulouse, France | 863 000 | 1.47% |
| 54
| Bremen, Germany | 861 000 | 0.27% |
| 55
| Thessaloniki, Greece | 828 000 | 0.67% |
| 56
| Bordeaux, France | 811 000 | 0.63% |
| 57
| Genoa, Italy | 803 000 | – 1.01% |
| 58
| Braga, Portugal | 798 137 | 1.27% |
| 59
| Cracow, Poland | 794 000 | 0.37% |
| 60
| Hannover, Germany | 768 000 | 0.25% |
| 61
| Nuremberg, Germany | 765 000 | 0.24% |
Notes
- ↑ 75% of these on French soil, 25% on Belgian soil
- ↑ Figure for 2003.
EFTA countries
Two European Free Trade Association countries have urban areas that would be included in the list if they were EU member states.
| Rank | Urban Area | Population | Annual change (1990s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (45)
| Zürich, Switzerland | 1 011 000 | 0.19% |
| 2 (56)
| Oslo, Norway | 810 000 | 1.09% |
Five fastest growing urban areas of the European Union
| Rank | Urban Area | Annual change (1990s) |
|---|---|---|
| 1
| Toulouse, France | 1.47% |
| 2
| Helsinki, Finland | 1.46% |
| 3
| Braga, Portugal | 1.27% |
| 4
| Stockholm, Sweden | 1.08% |
| 5
| Dublin, Republic of Ireland | 0.89% |
Five fastest declining urban areas of the European Union
| Rank | Urban Area | Annual change (1990s) |
|---|---|---|
| 1
| Riga, Latvia | – 1.36% |
| 2
| Genoa, Italy | – 1.01% |
| 3
| Katowice, Poland | – 0.95% |
| 3
| Turin, Italy | – 0.95% |
| 5
| Rome, Italy | – 0.85% |
Sources
- [Geopolis research group at the University of Avignon, France] for the majority of urban areas in the list
- [Population of urban areas provided by UK National Statistics] for UK urban areas
- [Population Classified by Area provided by the Central Statistics Office of Ireland] for Irish urban areas
- [Bank of Regional Data of the Polish Central Statistical Office] for Polish urban areas
- [Latest 2004 population estimates of French cities by INSEE] for revised figures for Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, and Bordeaux (the growth pattern in these urban areas during 1999-2004 is significantly higher than during 1990-1999)
- [Czech Statistical Office] for Czech urban areas
- [Citypopulation.de] for Latvian urban areas
- [link] for portuguese Statistics National Institute
- Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finish, and Greek statistical offices for urban areas of these countries
See also
- [World Urban Areas] All urbanized areas 500,000+ and others: Population & Density
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