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 750,000 inhabitants each 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

[edit] 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.

[edit] Urban areas over 750,000 inhabitants

Paris
London
Lisbon
Madrid
Athens
Milan
Barcelona
Copenhagen
Stockholm
Berlin
Naples
Rome
Katowice (Upper-Silesian Metropolis)
Frankfurt
Sofia
Rank Urban Area State Population
(2008 est.)		 Density (per km²) Annual growth rate (%)
1 Paris  France 10,480,000 3,400 0.83
2 London  United Kingdom 8,580,000 5,100 0.07
3 Ruhr area (Ruhrgebiet)  Germany 7,280,000 2,750 0.01
4 Madrid  Spain 5,370,000 5,200 0.27
5 Milan  Italy 4,335,000 1,750 -0.16
6 Barcelona  Spain 4,185,000 4,850 0.12
7 Athens  Greece 4,013,000 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 2,375,000 2,550 0.39
13 Frankfurt  Germany 2,295,000 3,350 0.50
14 West Midlands  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 2,095,000 2,450 0.39
17 Budapest  Hungary 2,055,000 2,350 -0.19
18 Cologne/Bonn  Germany 2,045,000 2,100 0.50
19 Warsaw  Poland 2,030,000 3,700 0.67
20 Bucharest  Romania 2,000,000 (2003) 7,000 0.10[1]
21 Vienna  Austria 1,954,964 (2007) 3,400 1.04[1]
22 Hamburg  Germany 1,925,000 (2001) 2,700 0.43[1]
23 Munich  Germany 1,675,000 (2001) 3,600 0.72[1]
24 Brussels  Belgium 1,625,000 (2005) 2,150 0.02[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 Greater 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--Kortrijk  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 Łódź  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 Tyneside  United Kingdom 880,000 (2001) 4,150 0.16[1]
46 Liverpool Urban Area  United Kingdom 816,000 (2001) 4,400 0.11[1]
47 Thessaloniki  Greece 800,000 (2001) 4,100 0.39[1]
48 Gdańsk  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 Bilbao  Spain 750,000 (2001) 5,800
54 Seville  Spain 750,000 (2001) 5,550

[edit] Non EU urban areas

[edit] 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]
Geneva  Switzerland 812,000 (2007)
Oslo  Norway 800,000 (2004) 2,450 0.99[1]

[edit] Non EFTA Countries

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

Urban Area State Population remarks
Moscow  Russia 13,670,000
Istanbul  Turkey 11,330,000 incl. suburbs in Asia
Saint Petersburg  Russia 4,530,000

[edit] See also

[edit] 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 Prospects

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_urban_areas_of_the_European_Union"