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 greater than 500,000 inhabitants each in 2013.

This list is an attempt to present a consistent list of population figures for urban areas in the European Union. All the figures here have been compiled by Demographia.

Contents

Important notes [edit]

  • This is a list of urban areas, not a list of metropolitan areas. Urban areas are contiguous built-up areas where houses are typically not more than 200 m 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.
  • This is a list of urban areas, not a list of administrative cities. For example, the list below contains the urban area of Lille-Kortrijk. Lille and Kortrijk remain two very distinct cities, each belonging to a different country, culture and language area. For a list of the largest cities of the European Union by population, please see Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits.
  • The study of urban areas is useful to analyse how cities develop, which in turn can be used to define transportation, planning and environmental policies, to adjust administrative boundaries etc. At the same time its limitations have to be acknowledged. It is a purely geographic study and disregards all other factors that contribute to the analysis of the functional city. For instance, several cities in the European Union such as Brussels and London have introduced green belts which impacts the urban area but not the "perceived city" as these green belts have now become integrated in what people consider to be the functional city. Furthermore the list does not make a difference between cities that have multiple satellites and cities that do not. Therefore two cities with the same demographics for their urban area will have an equal ranking on this list, even if one of the two cities may be much larger as it is the core of a number of satellites.
  • If you are used to higher figures for the cities listed below (London is sometimes listed with 14 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 typically 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.

Urban areas over 500,000 inhabitants [edit]

Paris
London
Ruhr area (Dortmund)
Madrid
Milan
Barcelona
Rome
Naples
Athens
Lisbon
Berlin
Katowice (Silesian Metropolis)
Frankfurt
Rank Urban Area State Population
(2011 est.)		 Density (per km²) Annual growth rate (%)
1 Paris  France 10,869,000 3,800 0.83
2 London  United Kingdom 9,576,000 5,900 0.07
3 Ruhr area  Germany 7,312,000 2,800 0.01
4 Madrid  Spain 6,087,000 4,600 0.27
5 Milan  Italy 5,248,000 2,800 −0.16
6 Barcelona  Spain 4,604,000 4,300 0.12
7 Berlin  Germany 3,956,000 2,900 0.01
8 Rome  Italy 3,798,000 3,400 0.89
9 Naples  Italy 3,726,000 3,600 0.01
10 Athens  Greece 3,510,000 5,000 0.29
11 Lisbon  Portugal 2,697,000 2,800 0.39
12 Katowice (Silesian Metropolis)  Poland 2,507,000 3,500 0.11
13 Frankfurt  Germany 2,303,000 3,400 0.50
14 Birmingham (West Midlands)  United Kingdom 2,297,000 3,800 −0.03
15 Manchester  United Kingdom 2,246,000 4,000 −0.03
16 Rotterdam-The Hague  Netherlands 2,119,000 2,500 0.39
17 Cologne-Bonn  Germany 2,069,000 2,200 0.50
18 Brussels  Belgium 1,944,000 2,600 0.02[1]
19 Bucharest  Romania 1,931,000 6,800 0.10[1]
20 Hamburg  Germany 1,796,000 2,500 0.43[1]
21 Vienna  Austria 1,732,000 3,800 1.04[1]
22 Budapest  Hungary 1,726,000 1,900 −0.19
23 Warsaw  Poland 1,715,000 3,200 0.67
24 Marseille  France 1,587,000 1,300 0.46[1]
25 Lyon  France 1,547,000 1,300 0.50[1]
26 Leeds-Bradford  United Kingdom 1,543,000 4,200 0.24[1]
27 Turin  Italy 1,499,000 4,000 −0.16[1]
28 Stockholm  Sweden 1,435,000 3,800 0.58[1]
29 Porto  Portugal 1,398,000 3,600 1.05[1]
30 Munich  Germany 1,357,000 2,900 0.72[1]
31 Stuttgart  Germany 1,274,000 3,100
32 Prague  Czech Republic 1,264,000 4,400 −0.07[1]
33 Copenhagen  Denmark 1,218,000 2,700 0.04[1]
34 Glasgow  United Kingdom 1,203,000 3,300 0.07[1]
35 Sofia  Bulgaria 1,182,000 5,700 0.78[1]
36 Helsinki  Finland 1,159,000 2,400 0.81[1]
37 Dublin  Ireland 1,143,000 2,500 1.14[1]
38= Lille  France,  Belgium 1,050,000 2,200 0.50[1]
38= Amsterdam  Netherlands 1,050,000 2,500 0.41[1]
40 Nuremberg  Germany 1,020,000 3,000
41 Nice  France 966,000 1,300 0.52[1]
42 Antwerp  Belgium 960,000 1,500 0.05[1]
43 Łódź  Poland 906,000 5,000 −0.67[1]
44 Newcastle upon Tyne  United Kingdom 894,000 4,200 0.16[1]
45 Toulouse  France 884,000 1,100 0.72[1]
46 Palermo  Italy 876,000 6,000 0.12[1]
47 Bordeaux  France 848,000 700 0.60[1]
48 Thessaloniki  Greece 840,000 4,300 0.39[1]
49= Florence  Italy 821,000 3,700
49= Liverpool  United Kingdom 821,000 4,400 0.11[1]
51 Valencia  Spain 810,000 3,000 0.29[1]
52 Gdańsk (Tricity)  Poland 775,000 5,000
53 Kraków  Poland 760,000 3,500
54= Riga  Latvia 750,000 2,900
54= Bilbao  Spain 750,000 5,800
54= Seville  Spain 750,000 5,600
57 Hannover  Germany 725,000 2,500
58 Catania  Italy 720,000 2,900
59= Las Palmas  Spain 700,000 6,800
59= Zagreb  Croatia 700,000 4,400
61 Nottingham  United Kingdom 666,000 4,200
62 Bremen  Germany 650,000 2,400
63 Sheffield  United Kingdom 641,000 4,000
64 Dresden  Germany 640,000 2,200
65 Genoa  Italy 625,000 8,000
66= Malaga  Spain 600,000 3,600
66= Poznań  Poland 600,000 2,700
66= Wrocław  Poland 600,000 4,800
69 Mannheim  Germany 586,000 3,500
70= Nantes  France 585,000 1,100
70= Aachen  Germany 585,000 1,500
72 Liepzig  Germany 570,000 2,000
73 Toulon  France 559,000 700
74 Bristol  United Kingdom 551,000 3,900
75= Liège  Belgium 550,000 1,900
75= Vilnius  Lithuania 550,000 2,500
75= Goteborg  Sweden 550,000 2,700
78 Saarbrucken  Germany 515,000 2,200
79= Douai-Lens  France 510,000 1,100
79= Bologna  Italy 510,000 3,300
81= Palma de Mallorca  Spain 500,000 3,000
81= Zaragoza  Spain 500,000 5,700

Non EU urban areas [edit]

EFTA countries [edit]

Two European Free Trade Association countries have urban areas that would be included in the list if they were EU member states.

Urban Area State Population Density (per km²) Growth rate (%)
Oslo  Norway 899,000 3,200 0.99[1]
Zürich  Switzerland 744,000 3,000 0.35[1]
Geneva  Switzerland 515,000 2,800
Basel  Switzerland 510,000 2,600

Non EFTA Countries [edit]

Some very large European urban areas are excluded since they are not part of an EU member state:

Urban Area State Population
Moscow  Russia 15,788,000
Istanbul  Turkey 12,919,000
Saint Petersburg  Russia 4,899,000
Kiev  Ukraine 2,816,000
Baku  Azerbaijan 2,112,000
Minsk  Belarus 1,860,000
Kharkiv  Ukraine 1,449,000
Yerevan  Armenia 1,300,000
Nizhni Novgorod  Russia 1,247,000
Samara  Russia 1,162,000
Kazan  Russia 1,141,000
Tbilisi  Georgia 1,122,000
Belgrade  Serbia 1,101,000
Odessa  Ukraine 1,010,000
Dnipropetrovsk  Ukraine 1,000,000
Donetsk  Ukraine 962,000

See also [edit]

Notes [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae United Nations: World Urbanization Prospects

External links [edit]

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