List of urban areas in the European Union
Appearance
This is a list of all the urban areas of the European Union which have greater than 750,000 inhabitants each in 2010.
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.
Important notes
- 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 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.
- This is a list of urban areas, not a list of administrative cities. The list below contains for instance 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.
- Please do not be surprised 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 750,000 inhabitants
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Rank | Urban Area | State | Population (2008 est.) |
Density (per km²) | Annual growth rate (%) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Paris | France | 10,195,000 | 3,400 | 0.83 |
2 | London | United Kingdom | 8,580,000 | 5,100 | 0.07 |
3 | Ruhr area (Ruhrgebiet) | Germany | 7,290,000 | 2,750 | 0.01 |
4 | Madrid | Spain | 5,390,000 | 5,200 | 0.27 |
5 | Milan | Italy | 4,345,000 | 1,750 | -0.16 |
6 | Barcelona | Spain | 4,200,000 | 4,850 | 0.12 |
7 | Athens | Greece | 3,765,000 | 5,400 | 0.29 |
8 | Berlin | Germany | 3,700,000 | 3,750 | 0.00 |
9 | Naples | Italy | 3,020,000 | 3,850 | -0.13 |
10 | Rome | Italy | 2,715,000 | 3,200 | -0.16 |
11 | Katowice (Upper-Silesian Metropolis) | Poland | 2,500,000 | 4,400 | 0.11 |
12 | Lisbon | Portugal | 2,385,000 | 2,550 | 0.39 |
13 | Frankfurt | Germany | 2,295,000 | 3,350 | 0.50 |
14 | West Midlands (Greater Birmingham) | United Kingdom | 2,290,000 | 3,800 | -0.03 |
15 | Greater Manchester | United Kingdom | 2,240,000 | 4,000 | -0.03 |
16 | Rotterdam-The Hague | Netherlands | 2,100,000 | 2,450 | 0.39 |
17 | Budapest | Hungary | 2,055,000 | 2,350 | -0.19 |
18 | Cologne/Bonn | Germany | 2,050,000 | 2,100 | 0.50 |
19 | Warsaw | Poland | 2,035,000 | 3,700 | 0.67 |
20 | Bucharest | Romania | 1,995,000 | 7,000 | 0.10[1] |
21 | Hamburg | Germany | 1,975,000 | 2,700 | 0.43[1] |
22 | Valencia | Spain | 1.832.274 | 4,300 | 0.29[1] |
23 | Munich | Germany | 1,770,000 | 3,600 | 0.72[1] |
23 | Vienna | Austria | 1,665,000 | 3,400 | 1.04[1] |
24 | Brussels | Belgium | 1,630,000 | 2,150 | 0.02[1] |
25 | Copenhagen | Denmark | 1,535,000 | 2,350 | 0.04[1] |
26 | Leeds-Bradford | United Kingdom | 1,535,000 | 4,050 | 0.24[1] |
27 | Lyon | France | 1,440,000 | 1,400 | 0.50[1] |
54 | Seville | Spain | 1.438.451 | 5,550 | |
28 | Marseille--Aix-en-Provence | France | 1,420,000 (2006) | 1,100 | 0.46[1] |
29 | Turin | Italy | 1,315,000 | 2,750 | -0.16[1] |
30 | Dublin | Ireland | 1,290,000 | 2,800 | 1.14[1] |
31 | Stockholm | Sweden | 1,280,000 | 2,700 | 0.58[1] |
32 | Stuttgart | Germany | 1,270,000 | 3,000 | |
33 | Helsinki | Finland | 1,220,000 (2000) | 2,250 | 0.81[1] |
34 | Greater Glasgow | United Kingdom | 1,195,000 | 3,250 | 0.07[1] |
35 | Prague | Czech Republic | 1,195,000 | 4,200 | -0.07[1] |
37 | Porto | Portugal | 1,115,000 | 2,650 | 1.05[1] |
38 | Amsterdam | Netherlands | 1,100,000 (2005) | 2,650 | 0.41[1] |
39 | Lille--Kortrijk | France, Belgium | 1,050,000 (1999) | 2,200 | 0.50[1] |
40 | Sofia | Bulgaria | 1,050,000 (2001) | 5,050 | 0.78[1] |
41 | Nuremberg | Germany | 1,020,000 (2001) | 3,050 | |
41 | Málaga | Spain | 965.371 | ||
42 | Nice | France | 955,000 | 1,250 | 0.52[1] |
55 | Bilbao | Spain | 949.939 | 5,800 | |
43 | Antwerp | Belgium | 920,000 | 1,400 | 0.05[1] |
44 | Łódź | Poland | 910,000 | 5,250 | -0.67[1] |
45 | Tyneside | United Kingdom | 890,000 | 4,150 | 0.16[1] |
46 | Toulouse | France | 875,000 | 950 | 0.72[1] |
47 | Bordeaux | France | 820,000 | 700 | 0.60[1] |
48 | Liverpool Urban Area | United Kingdom | 815,000 | 4,400 | 0.11[1] |
49 | Thessaloniki | Greece | 800,000 (2001) | 4,100 | 0.39[1] |
50 | Gdańsk | Poland | 775,000 (2002) | 5,000 | |
51 | Palermo | Italy | 755,000 | 5,150 | 0.12[1] |
52 | Florence | Italy | 750,000 (2001) | 2,750 | |
53 | Riga | Latvia | 750,000 (2005) |
Non EU urban areas
EFTA countries
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 | 880,000 | 2,450 | 0.99[1] |
Zürich | Switzerland | 850,000 | 3,650 | 0.35[1] |
Non EFTA Countries
Some very large European urban areas are excluded since they are not part of an EU member state:
Urban Area | State | Population | remarks |
---|---|---|---|
Moscow | Russia | 13,675,000 | |
Istanbul | Turkey | 13,135,000 | incl. the Asian part of the city |
Saint Petersburg | Russia | 4,530,000 | |
Kiev | Ukraine | 2,565,000 | |
Minsk | Belarus | 1,780,000 | |
Baku | Azerbaijan | 1,650,000 | |
Kharkov | Ukraine | 1,590,000 | |
Nizhni Novgorod | Russia | 1,455,000 | |
Donetsk | Ukraine | 1,350,000 | |
Dnepropetrovsk | Ukraine | 1,100,000 | |
Samara | Russia | 1,075,000 | |
Kazan | Russia | 1,065,000 |
See also
- Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits
- Largest metropolitan areas (LUZ) in the European Union
- List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population
- Largest population centres in the European Union
- List of urban areas by population
- Blue Banana
References
Figures without citations are from Demographia: World Urban Areas
External links
- United Nations list of urban agglomerations in the European Union (as tabulated by INSEE).
- Population of urban areas provided by UK National Statistics for UK urban areas