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Largest urban areas of the European Union 

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 urban areas in the European Union. All the figures here have been compiled by Demographia.

Contents

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 analyze 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 analyzis 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.
  • Several large urban areas in Europe are not listed since they are not part of an EU member state. These include Moscow (14,150,000), Saint Petersburg (4,570,000), and Istanbul (10,970,000).

Urban areas over 750,000 inhabitants

Rank Urban Area State Population
(2008 est.)		 Density (per km²) Annual growth rate (%)
1 Paris France 10,660,000 3,400 0.83
2 London United Kingdom 8,320,000 5,100 0.07
3 Ruhr area Germany 7,250,000 2,750 0.01
4 Madrid Spain 4,990,000 5,200 0.27
5 Milan Italy 4,150,000 1,750 -0.16
6 Barcelona Spain 3,930,000 4,850 0.12
7 Athens Greece 3,760,000 5,400 0.29
8 Berlin Germany 3,680,000 3,750 0.00
9 Naples Italy 2,970,000 3,850 -0.13
10 Rome Italy 2,720,000 3,200 -0.16
11 Katowice-Gliwice-Tychy Poland 2,620,000 3,400 1.11
12 Frankfurt Germany 2,340,000 3,350 0.50
13 Lisbon Portugal 2,310,000 2,550 0.39
14 Birmingham United Kingdom 2,280,000 3,800 -0.03
15 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 2,090,000 2,350 -0.19
18 Cologne-Bonn Germany 2,030,000 2,100 0.50
19 Warsaw Poland 2,010,000 3,700 0.07
20 Bucharest Romania 2,000,000 (2003) 7,000 0.10[1]
21 Hamburg Germany 1,925,000 (2001) 2,700 0.43[1]
22 Munich Germany 1,675,000 (2001) 3,600 0.72[1]
23 Brussels Belgium 1,625,000 (2005) 2,150 0.02[1]
24 Vienna Austria 1,550,000 (2001) 3,400 1.04[1]
25 Copenhagen Denmark 1,525,000 (2003) 2,350 0.04[1]
26 Leeds-Bradford United Kingdom 1,499,000 (2001) 4,050 0.24[1]
27 Stockholm Sweden 1,400,000 (2000) 2,700 0.58[1]
28 Marseille--Aix-en-Provence France 1,350,000 (1999) 1,100 0.46[1]
29 Turin Italy 1,350,000 (2000) 2,750 -0.16[1]
30 Lyon France 1,349,000 (1999) 1,400 0.50[1]
31 Stuttgart Germany 1,250,000 (2001) 3,000
32 Dublin Ireland 1,230,000 (2006) 2,800 1.14[1]
33 Prague Czech Republic 1,200,000 (2003) 4,200 -0.07[1]
34 Glasgow United Kingdom 1,200,000 (2001) 3,250 0.07[1]
35 Valencia Spain 1,175,000 (2001) 4,300 0.29[1]
36 Amsterdam Netherlands 1,100,000 (2005) 2,650 0.41[1]
37 Helsinki Finland 1,100,000 (2000) 2,250 0.81[1]
38 Lille France, Belgium 1,050,000 (1999) 2,200 0.50[1]
39 Sofia Bulgaria 1,050,000 (2001) 5,050 0.78[1]
40 Porto Portugal 1,035,000 (2001) 2,650 1.05[1]
41 Nuremberg Germany 1,020,000 (2001) 3,050
42 Lodz Poland 950,000 (2002) 5,250 -0.67[1]
43 Antwerp Belgium 915,000 (2003) 1,400 0.05[1]
44 Nice France 889,000 (1999) 1,250 0.52[1]
45 Newcastle upon Tyne United Kingdom 880,000 (2001) 4,150 0.16[1]
46 Liverpool United Kingdom 816,000 (2001) 4,400 0.11[1]
47 Thessaloniki Greece 800,000 (2001) 4,100 0.39[1]
48 Gdansk Poland 775,000 (2002) 5,000
49 Toulouse France 761,000 (1999) 950 0.72[1]
50 Bordeaux France 754,000 (1999) 700 0.60[1]
51 Florence Italy 750,000 (2001) 2,750
52 Palermo Italy 750,000 (2001) 5,150 0.12[1]
53 Riga Latvia 750,000 (2005) 2,900
54 Bilbao Spain 750,000 (2001) 5,800
55 Seville Spain 750,000 (2001) 5,550

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 (%)
Zürich Switzerland 830,000 (2003) 3,650 0.35[1]
Oslo Norway 800,000 (2004) 2,450 0.99[1]

References

Figures without citations are from Demographia: World Urban Areas

  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 Propsects

See also

External links


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